Brief daily exposures to Asian females reverses perceptual narrowing for Asian faces in Caucasian infants

Perceptual narrowing in the visual, auditory, and multisensory domains has its developmental origins during infancy. The current study shows that experimentally induced experience can reverse the effects of perceptual narrowing on infants' visual recognition memory of other-race faces. Caucasian 8- to 10-month-olds who could not discriminate between novel and familiarized Asian faces at the beginning of testing were given brief daily experience with Asian female faces in the experimental condition and Caucasian female faces in the control condition. At the end of 3 weeks, only infants who received daily experience with Asian females showed above-chance recognition of novel Asian female and male faces. Furthermore, infants in the experimental condition showed greater efficiency in learning novel Asian females compared with infants in the control condition. Thus, visual experience with a novel stimulus category can reverse the effects of perceptual narrowing during infancy via improved stimulus recognition and encoding.     

The Development of the Counseling Profession in Japan: Past,Present, and Future

The authors provide a sociohistorical overview of the development of the counseling profession in Japan. They describe Japan's major social, cultural, and political changes; growing psychological problems in Japanese society; and an increased need for counseling services. Historical overviews and the current state of counseling are presented with a particular focus on the definition of counseling, professional associations, certifications and credentials, counselor education, and counseling practices. The authors also examine future challenges and opportunities for professional counselors in Japan.     

Death of a Clinician: The Personal, Practical and Clinical Implications of Therapist Mortality

Death is inevitable and yet in US culture the discussion of death is somewhat taboo. Marriage and Family therapists are trained in the implications of grief and loss for clients who lose loved ones and yet examination of the impact of therapist mortality on clients is lacking in the clinical literature. This article examines ways that private practice therapists can both protect their client’s confidentiality and mitigate the impact of therapist sudden death on their clients with planning and forethought. In addition, the factors influencing the lack of empirical research on this topic is discussed in the context of social mores on death and how therapists’ own denial of mortality may impact their ability to connect with clients through the pain of grief and loss. Recommendations are made for therapists to evaluate their own attitudes towards mortality and develop a plan for client care in the event of their death.     

The Association between Childhood Abuse and Labor Force Outcomes in Young Adults: Results from the Ontario Child Health Study

We examined the associations between childhood physical and sexual abuse and labor force outcomes in young adults and the possible mediating effects of educational attainment, current mental health, and physical health. Data from the Ontario Child Health Study (N = 1,893), a province-wide longitudinal study were analyzed. Controlling for childhood and demographic variables, severe childhood physical abuse was significantly associated with reduced income with small mediating effects. There was a sex difference in the association between child abuse and employment. Severe childhood physical abuse was significantly associated with lower likelihood of employment only among males; mediators partially reduced this association. Further research is needed to explore the mechanisms linking exposure to child abuse and economic vulnerability in young adults.     

Longitudinal tests on the influence of achievement goals on effort and intrinsic interest in the workplace

This study investigates whether four types of achievement goals—mastery-approach, mastery-avoidance, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance—influence effort and intrinsic interest at work. Cross-lagged panel analyses were applied to data from a two-wave survey conducted on 57 newly hired Japanese police officers. The results showed that performance-approach goals had significant positive influences on effort and intrinsic interest. In contrast, performance-avoidance goals had significant negative impacts on the abovementioned two outcome variables. Longitudinal effects were observed when the influence of competence expectancy was controlled. These results highlight the benefits of performance-approach goals and the costs associated with performance-avoidance goals in the workplace.     

Development of Recognition of Face Parts from Unfamiliar Faces

The present study examined developmental changes in the ability to recognize face parts. In Experiment 1, participants were familiarized with whole faces and given a recognition test with old and new eyes, noses, mouths, inner faces, outer faces, or whole faces. Adults were above chance in their recognition of the eye and mouth regions. However, children did not naturally encode and recognize face parts independently of the entire face. In addition, all age groups showed comparable inner and outer face recognition, except for 8‐ to 9‐year‐olds who showed a recognition advantage for outer faces. In Experiment 2, when participants were familiarized with eyes, noses, or mouths and tested with eyes, noses, or mouths, respectively, all ages showed above‐chance recognition of eyes and mouths. Thirteen‐ to 14‐year‐olds were adult‐like in their recognition of the eye region, but mouth recognition continued to develop beyond 14 years of age. Nose recognition was above chance among 13‐ to 14‐year‐olds, but recognition scores remained low even in adulthood. The present findings reveal unique developmental trajectories in the use of isolated facial regions in face recognition and suggest that featural cues (as a class) have a different ontogenetic course relative to holistic and configural cues. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Anxiety and heart rate variability before sleep indicate chronic stress in students

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of chronic stress on the first-night effect in terms of autonomic nervous system activity and anxiety. Participants (N = 11; M age = 20.3 yr., SD = 0.47) included six with high stress (High stress group) and five with low stress (Low stress group), for whom all EEG data were available from three consecutive nights. Heart rate variability was calculated using the MemCalc method. The ratio of low to high frequency of heart rate variability before sleep onset in the High stress group on the first night indicated significantly higher activities than the ratio before sleep onset in the Low stress group. No significant difference in sleep latency was found between the two groups. However, the High stress group was more aware of anxiety than was the Low stress group, and the former estimated more subjective difficulty in falling asleep. These results suggest that measuring LF/HF before sleep may constitute a new way to assess chronic stress.     

The influence of monetary reward and punishment on psychological, physiological, behavioral and performance aspects of a golf putting task

The primary purpose of the present study was to examine kinematic characteristics and force control during a golf-putting task under a pressure condition. The secondary purpose was to provide an exploratory investigation of the relationship between changes in behavior (kinematics and force control) and performance on the one hand, and psychological (attention and affect) and physiological (arousal level) changes on the other hand. Twenty male novices performed 150 acquisition trials, followed by 10 test trials during a pressure condition induced by performance-contingent distracters: a cash reward or punishment. A three-dimensional motion analysis revealed that, during the pressure test, angular displacements of rotational movements at the horizontal plane and movement time of the arms and club during the backswing and downswing phases all decreased, while acceleration of the elbows during the downswing phase increased. Mean performance indices in all participants’ were unchanged in spite of the kinematic changes under the pressure condition. Multiple regression analyses indicated that the decrement in performance, as well as increased variability of movement time and speed, were more likely to increase when participants shifted their attention to movements. Furthermore, changes in heart rate and negative affect were related to both the increase in movement acceleration and a decrease in grip force. These findings suggest that performance and behavioral changes during golf-putting under pressure can be associated with attentional changes, along with the influences of physiological-emotional responses.     

Relative influences of lightness and facial morphology on perceived race

In a recent study (Brooks and Gwinn, 2010 Perception 39 1142-1145), the lightness contrast illusion was employed to study the influences of skin tone and facial morphology on race perception. The findings were rather counterintuitive: they suggested that skin tone does not play a major role in racial categorisation. To investigate this further, we used a parametric paradigm including five lightness levels, five morphing levels, and two face orientations. In accordance with Brooks and Gwinn, we found that race categorisation of African-American and Caucasian faces by Caucasian participants relied mainly on morphological cues. However, the relative influence of lightness increased when morphological information was ambiguous and when the faces were upside down. Overall, the results point to a flexible multicue-based mechanism underlying race perception.