Assignment of Leadership Role Changes Performers' Gaze During Piano Duo Performances

This study investigated modulation of gaze and synchronization in piano duos under manipulation of the leader-follower relationship. Three pairs of pianists played under 3 conditions: reversed leader/follower roles and one where neither was leader or follower. The primo and second players could see one another through a glass window but could hear only the sounds of the pianos. We analyzed each performer's gaze toward the coperformer frame by frame and measured asynchrony between performers. The main findings are that (a) gaze was altered in the presence of leadership assignments-followers' and leaders' gaze durations lengthened and shortened, respectively; (b) mutual gaze just before tempo changes enhanced synchronization regardless of leadership condition; and (c) the asynchronies of tone onset at the moment of a tempo change under the leader/follower conditions did not significantly differ from that under the control condition.     

Nitric oxide is involved in appetitive but not aversive olfactory learning in the land mollusk Limax valentianus

The land slug Limax performs both aversive and appetitive olfactory learning, and we investigated neurotransmitters involved in each type of learning. Slugs were conditioned by presenting a vegetable juice (appetitive conditioning) or a mixture of vegetable juice and quinidine (aversive conditioning), and the latency to reach the juice became shorter (appetitive conditioning) or longer (aversive conditioning) after conditioning. L-NAME injected either before conditioning or testing blocked the reduction in latency in appetitive conditioning but had no significant effects in aversive conditioning. 5,7-dihydroxytryptamine had no significant effects in appetitive conditioning. These results suggest different mechanisms for appetitive and aversive learning.     

Palatable Punishment in Real‐World Social Dilemmas? Punishing Others to Increase Cooperation Among the Unpunished1

Social‐dilemma research has shown that imposing sanctions on defection may increase cooperation, a principle behind attempts to solve real‐world social dilemmas. Yet sanctioning systems are often difficult to implement: They are unpopular and often have large surveillance and enforcement costs. A new sanctioning system, intentionally punishing defection intermittently for some but not all group members, is shown to increase cooperation among those not punished, a finding labeled the spillover effect. This study suggests that the effect cannot be attributed simply to cooperative tendencies, as factors affecting cooperation do not affect the effect's size. The benefits of such a sanctioning system, which preserves the characteristics of social dilemmas, could include minimization of surveillance and enforcement costs, and greater public acceptability.     

Mediating effect of environmental rewards on the relation between goal-directed behaviour and anhedonia

Depression can be explained by certain behavioural patterns, especially low levels of environmental rewards; it is generally accompanied by infrequent goal-directed behaviour, increased depressed mood, and anhedonia. However, no research has statistically examined the mediating effect of environmental rewards on the relation between goal-directed behaviour and the symptoms of depressed mood or anhedonia. This study sought to determine whether such a mediating effect of environmental rewards is present in cross-sectional study. The participants included 101 patients diagnosed with major depressive disorders. Data were collected through three questionnaires measuring depression and behavioural patterns that maintain depression: the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), the Environmental Reward Observation Scale (EROS), and the Behavioral Activation for Depression Scale—Short Form (BADS-SF). Mediation analysis was conducted using depressed mood and anhedonia as dependent variables, environmental rewards as the mediating variable, and goal-directed behaviour as the independent variable. Environmental rewards significantly mediated the relationship between goal-directed behaviour and anhedonia but not that between goal-directed behaviour and depressed mood. No significant relationships were found among depressed mood, goal-directed behaviour and environmental rewards. From these results, we conclude that low levels of environmental rewards accompanied by infrequent goal-directed behaviour can lead to increased anhedonia but not depressed mood.

     

MA and Togetherness (Ittaikan) in the Narratives of Dancers and Spectators: Sharing an Uncertain Space

The Japanese concept/character MA (間), commonly translated as “gap, interval, or the in between,” partakes in many forms of Japanese arts and daily-life practices. In this article, we report the results of a qualitative research on the meaning or experience of MA and its relation with the feeling of togetherness in the context of contemporary dance improvisation. We interviewed performers and spectators (all professional dancers) while they watched the videotaped and reduced stick-figure versions of short dance improvisations created in a laboratory installed with motion-capture sensors. Based on the individual narratives, and inspired by Japanese and occidental aesthetic writings, we elaborate a specific understanding of MA as attending to the event's preacceleration, and how this experience causally relates to the feeling of togetherness (一体感, ittaikan). We propose that MA, understood not extensionally (as an empty space or a silent gap), but intentionally/internally as a certain quality of attention or perceptual mode, is fertile ground for serendipity. MA as an interpersonal ethical construct suggests a transsubjective difference as a foundation for a collective coming together.     

Is retrieving positive self-concordant specific memory beneficial to mood repair? The moderation effect of depressive symptoms

The present study examined whether positive specific memory recall improves mood more than overgeneral memory recall. Moreover, this study examined the mood contrast effect in subclinically depressed participants. The mood contrast effect refers to when people ruminate on discrepancies between the current self and a past ideal self by recall of positive self-discrepant (low self-concordant) memories and thereby, fall into a negative mood. Undergraduate students (N?=?161) underwent a negative mood induction, and then concentrated on positive specific memory recall, positive overgeneral memory recall, or distraction. Results showed that there were no group differences in mood repair. Nevertheless, recalled memory self-concordance was associated with sad mood repair in the specific memory group, and moreover, this effect was not significant in people high in depressive symptoms. We discussed the results of mood repair effect from the perspective of baseline negative mood in subclinical depression.