The role of imagery-related properties in picture naming: A newly standardized set of 360 pictures for Japanese

Picture naming was investigated primarily to determine its dependence on certain imagery-related variables, with a secondary aim of developing a new set of Japanese norms for 360 pictures. Pictures refined from the original Nishimoto, Miyawaki, Ueda, Une, and Takahashi (Behavior Research Methods 37:398?C416, 2005) set were used. Naming behaviors were measured using four imagery-related measures (imageability, vividness, image agreement, and image variability) and four conventional measures (naming time, name agreement, familiarity, and age of acquisition), as well as a number of other measures (17 total). A simultaneous multiple regression analysis performed on naming times showed that the most reliable predictor was H, a measure of name diversity; two image-related measures (image agreement and vividness) and age of acquisition also contributed substantially to the prediction of naming times. The accuracy of picture naming (measured as name agreement) was predicted by vividness, age of acquisition, familiarity, and image agreement. This suggests that certain processes involving mental imagery play a role in picture naming. The full set of norms and pictures may be downloaded from http://www.psychonomic.org/archive/ or along with the article from http://www.springerlink.com.     

How do Children Evaluate the Gossiper of Negative Gossip?

In this study, we investigated how children evaluate gossipers. There are two conflicting ways in which children evaluate the gossiper of negative gossip about another person. One is that they perceive the gossiper of negative gossip as bad because saying something negative about another person can be seen as indirect aggression. The other is that they perceive the gossiper of negative gossip as good because such gossip is beneficial to regulate their relationship with the gossip's target. To address the issue, we asked 7- and 8-year-olds to choose the gossiper of negative gossip or the gossiper of neutral gossip as a cooperative partner and to distribute resources between the gossipers. We found that the children often did not choose the gossiper of negative gossip as a partner and did not distribute many resources to her, indicating a perception of the negative gossiper as bad. This suggests that children's evaluation of a gossiper is influenced by the valence of gossip rather than the value of gossip.     

Perception of the motion trajectory of objects from moving cast shadows in infant Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata)

The shadows cast by moving objects enable human adults and infants to infer the motion trajectories of objects. Nonhuman animals must also be able to discriminate between objects and their shadows and infer the spatial layout of objects from cast shadows. However, the evolutionary and comparative developmental origins of sensitivity to cast shadows have not been investigated. In this study, we used a familiarity/novelty preferential looking procedure to assess the ability of infant macaques, aged 7–24 weeks, to discriminate between a ‘depth’ display containing a ball and cast shadow moving diagonally and an ‘up’ display containing a ball with a diagonal trajectory and a shadow with a horizontal trajectory. The infant macaques could discriminate the trajectories of the balls based on the moving shadows. These findings suggest that the ability to perceive the motion trajectory of an object from the moving shadow is common to both humans and macaques.     

How cattle discriminate between green and dead forages accessible by head and neck movements by means of senses: reliance on vision varies with the distance to the forages

Animal Cognition - The ability of ungulates to discriminate among vegetation patches depends largely on the senses of vision, olfaction, tactility, and gustation. However, little is known about how...