Effects and Limitations of Prosodic and Semantic Biases on Syntactic Disambiguation

This paper examined the effects of prosody on the syntactic ambiguity resolution of Japanese sentences, especially with reference to the interaction with semantic bias. Syntactically ambiguous sentences with different types of semantic bias were constructed. The degree of bias in each sentence was evaluated through visual presentation experiments. Three types of sentences were selected based on the results of visual presentation experiments, were recorded with prosody maximally favoring each possible interpretation of the sentences, and were used as the stimuli for the auditory presentation experiments. The results showed that prosodic cues can influence the interpretation of a sentence even when the sentence is strongly semantically biased. The results also showed a limitation to prosodic cues. The prosodic biases alone were not sufficient to fully determine the interpretation of the sentences even when the sentences were neutrally biased semantically.     

Roles,Responsibility, and Accounts Across Cultures

In research on the attribution of responsibility, increasing attention is being paid to the fact that responsibility judgments are social negotiations, not just the cognitions of isolated individuals. In this negotiating process, accounts, including excuses and justifications, may diminish or even eliminate responsibility for wrongdoing. This paper presents a perspective on responsibility attribution and reviews recent literature on accounts. It emphasizes the way in which aspects of social roles—specifically, the solidarity or closeness of the parties and their hierarchical or equal status—may affect the choice and effectiveness of accounts. A second theme is the way in which the impact of various accounts may vary across cultures: In this case, the United States vs. Japan. We pay special attention to differences between roles and between cultures in use of three accounts: denial (e.g. “I didn't do it”); consensus (e.g. “everyone does it”); and apology. The paper draws on pilot research carried out in the U.S. and Japan. Results showed that solidarity, hierarchy, and culture each affected the use of accounts, but sometimes in complex ways. We conclude by offering speculations and suggestions for future cross-cultural research into the social psychology of attributing responsibility and offering accounts.     

Van Gogh, Chagall and pigeons: picture discrimination in pigeons and humans

The author has previously reported that pigeons can discriminate paintings by different artists. Here, I replicated the previous findings, carried out additional tests and compared discrimination by pigeons with that of humans. In Experiment 1, pigeons were trained to discriminate between paintings by Van Gogh and Chagall. After training, the subjects were tested with different paintings by the same artists. The subjects showed generalization to these paintings. The subjects maintained their discriminative ability for black-and-white paintings and partially occluded paintings. When they were tested with mosaic paintings, the number of correct responses decreased, depending on the level of processing needed. In Experiment 2, human subjects were tested with the same paintings. The subjects showed generalization and decrement of correct responses depending on the degree of mosaic processing. These observations suggest that the visual cognitive function of pigeons is comparable to that of humans. The convergence of higher visual cognition between the two species may stem from similar selection pressures on avian ancestors and our ancestors through their evolution. Accepted after revision: 19 August 2001 Electronic Publication     

Perturbation of Japanese mother-infant habitual interactions in the double video paradigm and relationship to maternal playfulness

Double video paradigm (DVP) studies have found contradictory evidence regarding the young infants' ability to discriminate their mother's 'replay' image from 'live'. This study examined the hypothesis that 4-month-old infants whose mothers showed high-levels-of-playful-behavior are more likely to discriminate social contingency in the DVP. We also examined the relationships between the infants' DVP behaviors and mothers' free-play behaviors at home with their 3-month-old infants. The results supported our hypothesis. Further, when the mothers' behaviors were reduced to playful companion (PC) and sensitive support (SS) by a principal component analysis, the level of PC was closely related to the infants' detection of social contingency, but SS was not. The different functions of mothers' 'playfulness' and 'sensitivity' in communication with their infants are discussed.     

Contrast and depth perception: effects of texture contrast and area contrast

Many objects in natural scenes have textures on their surfaces. Contrast of the texture surfaces (the texture contrast) reduces when the viewing distance increases. Similarly, contrast between the surfaces of the objects and the background (the area contrast) reduces when the viewing distance increases. The texture contrast and the area contrast were defined by the contrast between random dots, and by the contrast between the average luminance of the dot pattern and the luminance of the background, respectively. To examine how these two types of contrast influence depth perception, we ran two experiments. In both experiments two areas of random-dot patterns were presented against a uniform background, and participants rated relative depth between the two areas. We found that the rated depth of the patterned areas increased with increases in texture contrast. Furthermore, the effect of the texture contrast on depth judgment increased when the area contrast became low.     

Visual Dominance in Amending the Directional Parameter of Feedforward Control

The authors examined visual dominance between trials in which the movement program was amended (i.e., off-line processing). Weighting between visual and proprioceptive feedback was examined in a trial-by-trial analysis of the directional parameter of feedforward control. Eight participants moved a cursor to a target displayed on a computer screen by manipulating a hand-held stylus on a digitizing tablet. In the first 30 trials, the cursor followed the stylus movement (practice condition). In the next 30 trials, the directional error of the stylus movement was presented in the opposite direction (reversal condition). Subjects knew the presence and the nature of the reversal. In the last 10 trials, the reversal was withdrawn (transfer condition). Directional error of feedforward control was relatively small in the practice condition, and it increased gradually in 1 of 2 directions as trials proceeded in the reversal condition. Positive aftereffect was observed in the transfer condition. A constant increment of the directional error indicated that both visual and proprioceptive feedback are registered, with higher weight on vision, and that weighting between those inputs is determined automatically or is fixed without any strategic control.     

Socratic Courage in Plato's Socratic Dialogues

This article considers Socrates's conception of courage in Plato's Socratic dialogues. Although the Laches, which is the only dialogue devoted in toto to a pursuit of the definition of courage, does not explicitly provide Socrates's definition of courage, I shall point out clues therein which contribute to an understanding of Socrates's conception of courage. The Protagoras is a peculiar dialogue in which Socrates himself offers a definition of courage. Attending to the dramatic structure and personalities of the dialogue, I will point out that Socrates does not commit to the definition and that the hedonism and the definition of courage are used to disclose Protagoras's confusion regarding virtue. Following one of the clues within the Laches I will turn to the Apology and indicate Socrates's conception of courage which is based on his awareness of lack of knowledge of death and his religious conviction that nothing will happen for the good in life or in death. Finally I will show that such conception of Socratic courage satisfies the criteria in the Laches.     

Large-billed crows (Corvus macrorhynchos) have retrospective but not prospective metamemory

Evidence of metamemory, the ability to monitor one’s own memory, has been obtained in some primates, but it appears to be weaker in other species. In this study, we examined whether crows flexibly modulate their behavior by monitoring the strength of memory trace in a delayed matching-to-sample task using two paradigms. First, crows performing a memory test were given an escape option to decline taking the test (prospective metamemory). Second, crows were given the escape option as a “not confident” report after completing the test (retrospective metamemory). Accurate memory performance yielded a reward with a higher probability, whereas inaccurate memory performance resulted in no such recompense. The escape option yielded a reward with a lower probability. In the prospective metamemory test, crows escaped the memory test more frequently with longer delay intervals than they did with shorter delay intervals but no more frequently in the sample-omission than the sample-present trials, indicating that the crows decided to take the test or decline it by using the delay interval as a cue. In contrast, in the retrospective metamemory test, the crows escaped the memory test more frequently when their memory-test response was incorrect than correct and more frequently in the sample-omission than the sample-present trials, indicating that the crows recognized confidence regarding their choice in the memory test and utilized the escape option to maximize reward probability. Although these results suggest that crows retrospectively monitor the strength of memory trace, their prospective metamemory ability has not yet been confirmed in the present paradigm.     

Discrimination of moving video images of self by pigeons (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Columba livia</Emphasis>)

The ability to recognize self has been known to be limited to some animal species, but previous research has focused almost exclusively on the animal's reaction to a mirror. Recent studies suggest that the temporal contingency between a subject's action and the corresponding visual scene reflected in a mirror plays an important role in self-recognition. To assess the roles of visual-proprioceptive contiguity in self-recognition, we explored whether pigeons are able to discriminate videos of themselves with various temporal properties. We trained five pigeons to respond to live video images of themselves (live self-movies) and not to video filmed during previous training sessions (pre-recorded self-movies). Pigeons learned to peck trial-unique live self-movies more frequently than pre-recorded self-movies. We conducted two generalization tests after pigeons learned to discriminate between the two conditions. First, discrimination acquired during training sessions was transferred to a test session involving live self-movies and new pre-recorded self-movies. Second, the same pigeons were tested in extinction procedure using delayed live self-movies and new pre-recorded self-movies. Although pigeons responded to delayed presentations of live self-movies more frequently than to new pre-recorded self-movies, the relative response rate to delayed presentation of live self-movies gradually decreased as the temporal discrepancy between pigeons' own behavior and the corresponding video increased. These results indicate that pigeons' discrimination of self-movies with various temporal properties was based on the temporal contiguity between their behavior and its visual feedback. The methodology used in the present experiment is an important step toward improving the experimental analysis of self-recognition in non-human animals.     

Infants show a facilitation effect for native language phonetic perception between 6 and 12 months

Patterns of developmental change in phonetic perception are critical to theory development. Many previous studies document a decline in nonnative phonetic perception between 6 and 12 months of age. However, much less experimental attention has been paid to developmental change in native-language phonetic perception over the same time period. We hypothesized that language experience in the first year facilitates native-language phonetic performance between 6 and 12 months of age. We tested 6-8- and 10-12-month-old infants in the United States and Japan to examine native and nonnative patterns of developmental change using the American English /r-l/ contrast. The goals of the experiment were to: (a) determine whether facilitation characterizes native-language phonetic change between 6 and 12 months of age, (b) examine the decline previously observed for nonnative contrasts and (c) test directional asymmetries for consonants. The results show a significant increase in performance for the native-language contrast in the first year, a decline in nonnative perception over the same time period, and indicate directional asymmetries that are constant across age and culture. We argue that neural commitment to native-language phonetic properties explains the pattern of developmental change in the first year.