Development of the overt-covert aggression inventory

The expression of anger in Japanese people is different from that of other races. We developed a new brief inventory, the Overt-Covert Aggression Inventory, to assess aggressive behavior ofJapanese people by focusing on their uniqueness and examined its reliability and validity. This inventory, the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression scale, the Japanese version of the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire, and the Picture-Frustration Study were administered to 3,104 men and 316 women in a factory. Internal consistency, test-retest reliability, concurrent validity, and construct validity of the scale were examined. We confirmed that the Overt-Covert Aggression Inventory has adequate reliability and sufficient concurrent validity, however, further studies of the construct validity and discriminant validity are required.     

Ideas that handicap therapy with young people

A review is done of ideas that handicapped therapists, particularly therapists of young people defined as schizophrenic, and were abandoned over the last twenty years. It is suggested that therapists currently seek theories that lead to success and avoid theories that lead to failure. The criteria for an effective theory of therapy are offered. Past ideas and theories are described in terms of meeting the criteria. Included in the review of unfortunate ideas for the therapy of mad young people are the organic theory, the psychodynamic theory, and those aspects of systems theory and double bind theory which were not helpful. How therapists recovered from these ideas is discussed. A contemporary theory of family oriented theory which meets more of the criteria of an effective theory of therapy is suggested.This paper, in a somewhat different form, was presented at the meeting Beyond the Double Bind in March, 1977. It will also appear as a chapter in a forthcoming book on the therapy of disturbed young people.     

The influence of Hangul learning upon laterality differences in Hangul word recognition by native Japanese subjects

Single-character Hangul words were presented tachistoscopically in the left or right visual field to 34 normal, right-handed Japanese subjects who did not know Hangul. The reaction time was measured. A significant left-field superiority for Hangul recognition was shown. When 18 out of 34 subjects learned Hangul stimuli, they showed no lateral asymmetry for Hangul recognition. However, the other 16 subjects, without Hangul learning, again exhibited a significant left-field superiority. The results show that the initial left-field superiority shifted to no laterality difference for Hangul recognition by poor Hangul learners.     

Musical groove shapes children's free dancing

The drive to move to music is evident across a variety of contexts, from the simple urge to tap our toe to a song on the radio, to massive crowds dancing in time at a rock concert. Though seemingly effortless, beat synchronization is difficult to master and children are often poor beat synchronizers. Nevertheless, auditory-motor integration is fundamental for many daily processes, such as speech. A topic that has been relatively understudied concerns how stimulus properties affect young children's movement in responses to auditory stimuli. In the present study, we examined how musical groove (adult-rated desire to move) affected 3.0- to 6.9-year-old children's free dancing in the comfort of their home (n = 78). In the high groove conditions, children danced more and with more energy compared to the low groove conditions. Moreover, in the high groove condition, children's movement tempos corresponded better with the tempos of the music. Results point to early childhood sensitivity to the musical features that motivate adults to move to music. High groove music may therefore prove especially effective at facilitating early auditory-motor integration. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://youtu.be/vli0-6N12Ts .     

Not all is forgotten: Children's associative matrices for features of a word learning episode

Word learning studies traditionally examine the narrow link between words and objects, indifferent to the rich contextual information surrounding objects. This research examined whether children attend to this contextual information and construct an associative matrix of the words, objects, people, and environmental context during word learning. In Experiment 1, preschool-aged children (age: 3;2–5;11 years) were presented with novel words and objects in an animated storybook. Results revealed that children constructed associations beyond words and objects. Specifically, children attended to and had the strongest associations for features of the environmental context but failed to learn word-object associations. Experiment 2 demonstrated that children (age: 3;0–5;8 years) leveraged strong associations for the person and environmental context to support word-object mapping. This work demonstrates that children are especially sensitive to the word learning context and use associative matrices to support word mapping. Indeed, this research suggests associative matrices of the environment may be foundational for children's vocabulary development.     

Significance of visual cues in choice behavior in the female zebra finch (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Taeniopygia guttata</Emphasis><Emphasis Type="Italic">castanotis</Emphasis>)

Female zebra finches show a preference for male zebra finches over heterospecific males based solely on the auditory cues of males, such as songs. The present study was designed to investigate whether females show a similar preference for male zebra finches based solely on visual cues. Using a Y-maze apparatus, social preference of female zebra finches was studied between male zebra finches and male Bengalese finches in three experiments. In experiment 1, where female zebra finches could see and hear live male zebra finches and male Bengalese finches, the females preferred to associate with the male zebra finches. In experiment 2, using a sound-attenuated experimental apparatus, subjects could see, but not hear, male zebra finches and male Bengalese finches. The subjects did not show a significant preference for associating with zebra finches. In experiment 3, as in experiment 2, females could see live male zebra finches and male Bengalese finches in the sound-attenuated chambers. However, in experiment 3, the subjects also heard prerecorded auditory cues (i.e., songs and calls) of male zebra finches, which were presented simultaneously in both arms of the maze. Although the females could not use the auditory cues to identify the location of the male zebra finches, they preferred to associate with the male zebra finches rather than the male Bengalese finches. These results suggest that visual cues alone were effective in initiating choice behaviors by females and that auditory cues facilitate such visually based choice behaviors. Electronic Publication     

Factors shaping vividness of memory episodes: visitors' long-term memories of the 1970 Japan World Exposition

This study investigated how visitors' psychological and behavioural factors, identified in the literature, shaped their vivid long-term memories of their experiences of the Japan World Exposition, Osaka, 1970 (Expo '70) as a context. In this study, 112 memory episodes were identified from the long-term memories of 48 participants; they were rated in terms of their memory vividness and on a set of factors including affect, agenda fulfilment, intentionality, and rehearsal. The influence of these factors on the vividness of episodic and/or autobiographic memories of experiences that occurred 34 years ago was examined in two stages. First, the relationship between memory vividness and individual factors was investigated separately. Second, the relationship between memory vividness and all factors was examined through a multiple regression analysis, and the relative importance of these factors on memory vividness identified. Stage one analysis showed that all factors except intentionality were related to memory vividness in individual analyses, and curvilinear relationships between memory vividness and the factors found. Stage two analysis, in which all factors were included in a multiple regression analysis, found that rehearsal was positively related to memory vividness and all other factors not significant in the presence of rehearsal.     

The unconscious cost of good fortune: implicit and explicit self-esteem, positive life events, and health.

J. D. Brown and K. L. McGill (1989) found that positive life events were associated with better health only for people high in self-esteem. Among people low in self-esteem, positive life events were associated with poorer health. The authors of this study replicated this finding in a self-report survey of 61 male and 110 female college students. In addition, they showed that implicit self-esteem moderated the relation between positive life events and self-reported health in the same fashion as explicit self-esteem did. Whereas people high in implicit self-esteem reported being healthier when they experienced more positive life events, people low in implicit self-esteem reported being healthier when they experienced fewer positive life events. Moreover, the effects of implicit self-esteem were statistically independent of the effects of explicit self-esteem.     

Retrieval Dynamics and Retention in Cross‐Situational Statistical Word Learning

Previous research on cross‐situational word learning has demonstrated that learners are able to reduce ambiguity in mapping words to referents by tracking co‐occurrence probabilities across learning events. In the current experiments, we examined whether learners are able to retain mappings over time. The results revealed that learners are able to retain mappings for up to 1 week later. However, there were interactions between the amount of retention and the different learning conditions. Interestingly, the strongest retention was associated with a learning condition that engendered retrieval dynamics that initially challenged the learner but eventually led to more successful retrieval toward the end of learning. The ease/difficulty of retrieval is a critical process underlying cross‐situational word learning and is a powerful example of how learning dynamics affect long‐term learning outcomes.