A second Leonardo da Vinci?

We describe a young woman who suddenly began mirror writing with her right hand and has not reverted to normal writing for more than 6 years, although she writes normally with her left hand. She is ambidextrous, although she had previously used only her right hand for writing and drawing. Since it is much easier for her to use right-handed mirror writing, she uses her left hand only for writing meant to be read by others and her right hand for all other writing. Her hobbies are sculpture and painting, and her chief complaint is migraine accompanied by sensory and perceptive disturbances.     

The body-inversion effect

Researchers argue that faces are recognized via the configuration of their parts. An important behavioral finding supporting this claim is the face-inversion effect, in which inversion impairs recognition of faces more than nonface objects. Until recently, faces were the only class of objects producing the inversion effect for untrained individuals. This study investigated whether the inversion effect extends to human body positions, a class of objects whose exemplars are structurally similar to each other. Three experiments compared the recognition of upright and inverted faces, houses, and body positions using a forced-choice, same/different paradigm. For both reaction time and error data, the recognition of possible human body postures was more affected by inversion than the recognition of houses. Further, the recognition of possible human body postures and recognition of faces showed similar effects of inversion. The inversion effect was diminished for impossible body positions that violated the biomechanical constraints of human bodies. These data suggest that human body positions, like faces, may be processed configurally by untrained viewers.     

Human figure drawing size and body image in preschool children from a self-physique perspective

To learn about the relationship between size of human figure drawings and the physiques of children, we investigated body image characteristics in childhood by using the Human Figure Drawing test. Height, weight, Kaup Index (a body mass index for children) and Human Figure Drawing traits (vertical height, horizontal width, waist size, surface area of head, surface area of the self-drawing) were measured for drawings of 122 4- to 6-yr.-old children (62 boys, 60 girls). Analysis showed that boys, who are physically larger than girls, produced self-drawings with somewhat larger surface areas. For vertical height of self-drawings of boys, 4-yr.-olds characteristically made taller self-drawings than 5-yr.-olds. While we hypothesized that taller children would make vertically taller self-drawings, we observed a negative relationship between children's physical height and the vertical height of the self-drawings. 4-yr.-old boys showed the most interest in their own physical height, making taller drawings and in doing so gave a clue to an early childhood feature of body image.     

Accuracy of two simple methods for the assessment of health-related physical fitness

We have developed a useful equation for estimating health-related physical fitness age. This version of health-related fitness age was developed as an extension of the biological age index and is useful for evaluation of individual differences in functional abilities of middle-aged and older adults. This measure consists of 4 independent variables fitness (VO2 max, standing trunk flexibility, %fat, and grip strength). However, direct measurement of maximal oxygen uptake (VO2 max) is an invasive clinical procedure and not practical for large scale work. In the current study, we attempted to assess the fitness age more feasibly. We selected a questionnaire method and a 12-min. submaximal treadmill walk test as substitutes for the VO2 max test. The three fitness ages were computed for 23 Japanese men (M(age) 54.7 +/- 10.7 yr.), using actual VO2 max (actual fitness age), questionnaire VO2 max (predicted questionnaire fitness age), and treadmill VO2 max (predicted treadmill fitness age). Predicted questionnaire fitness age (61.0 +/- 10.5 yr.) and predicted treadmill fitness age (60.0 +/- 12.4 yr.) were significantly correlated with actual fitness age (60.1 +/- 12.4 yr.) (r= .96 and .97, respectively). There were no significant differences among the three indices, but there was a significant difference between actual fitness age and chronological age (p<.05). For VO+/-2 max substituting the questionnaire for the treadmill estimate is acceptable in assessing fitness age and reducing the clinical risk for middle-aged and older Japanese men.     

The Role of Coping Styles and Self-efficacy in the Development of Dysphoric Mood Among Nursing Students

Coping styles and self-efficacy have been recognized as important determinants of dysphoric mood. The objectives of this study were to determine the influence of these two factors on depression and anxiety in Japanese students. A set of questionnaires, including the Hospital Anxiety and Depression (HAD) Scale, the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS), and the Self-efficacy Scale (SES) was distributed to 146 nursing students. Structural equation modelling was conducted to specify the relationships between measured variables. The HAD depression and anxiety scores were predicted by emotion-oriented coping. The HAD depression alone was predicted by avoidance-oriented coping. Self-efficacy scores predicted the emotion-oriented coping and HAD depression scores. Students’ dysphoric moods were influenced by emotional-oriented coping that mediated the effects of low self-efficacy, and self-efficacy also had a direct effect on depression.     

Looking compensates for the distance between mother and infant chimpanzee

The development of visual interaction between mother and infant has received much attention in developmental psychology, not only in humans, but also in non-human primates. Recently, comparative developmental approaches have investigated whether the mechanisms that underlie these behaviors are common in primates. In the present study, we focused on the question of whether chimpanzee mother and infant replace physical contact with visual contact. To test this hypothesis, we measured non-synchronous looking ('looking') between mother and infant. A unique setting, in which the mother chimpanzee stayed in one location and the infant chimpanzee moved freely, allowed us to analyze the relation between the visual interaction and the distance of a mother-infant pair during the first year of life. Our results showed that 'looking' increased when body contact decreased or when the distance between mother and infant increased. We also show a behavioral sequence of typical 'secure base' behavior, a behavior characterized by the infant regularly returning to its mother when exploring the environment. These findings imply that attachment between mother and infant chimpanzee appears to develop in a similar fashion as in humans.     

Mirror reversal: empirical tests of competing accounts

In a mirror, left and right are said to look reversed. Surprisingly, this very familiar phenomenon, mirror reversal, has still no agreed-upon account to date. This study compared a variety of accounts in the light of empirical data. In Experiment 1, 102 students judged whether the mirror image of a person or a character looked reversed or not in 15 settings and also judged the directional relation between its components. In Experiment 2, 52 students made the reversal judgements in 13 settings. It was found for the first time that a substantial proportion of people denied the left-right mirror reversal of a person, whereas virtually all of them did recognize that of a character. This discrepancy strongly suggested that these two kinds of mirror reversal are produced by different processes, respectively. A number of findings including this discrepancy clearly contradicted two accounts that are currently active: the one based on the priority of the up-down and front-back axes over the left-right axis, and the one based on the physical rotation of an object. All the findings were consistent with an account that considered mirror reversal a complex of three different phenomena produced by three different processes, respectively.     

Functional magnetic resonance imaging of human cognitive processes

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is now widely accepted as a tool for analyzing human brain function. Since the realization of fMRI in the early 1990s, numerous reports have been published. In this paper, we present three studies. The first examined syntactic processing of Japanese sentences and the results prove that Broca's area is involved in the use of grammar. The second study compared binocular with monocular stereopsis. There were significant activations in the right inferior parietal lobe. The third study concerned the encoding and retrieval processes underlying face recognition. It revealed activations mainly in the right prefrontal areas, which is contrary to the hemispheric encoding and retrieval asymmetry (HERA) theory. fMRI will continue to play an important role in the analysis of human brain function.     

Model Existence in Non-Compact Modal Logic

Predicate modal logics based on Kwith non-compact extra axioms are discussed and a sufficient condition for the model existence theorem is presented. We deal with various axioms in a general way by an algebraic method, instead of discussing concrete non-compact axioms one by one.