Missed Opportunities: Speculation on What Japanese Psychology Could Have Been

Takasuna (Integr. Physiol. Behav. Sci. 41, 2007) mentioned the ease with which evolutionary theory was accepted by Japanese psychologists, and certainly this is admirable. He also mentioned the stubborn force which had to be used to gain an understanding of the (thoroughly Western) subjective–objective distinction. Alas, during the formative years of Japanese psychology, there was much philosophical work afoot attempting to destroy that distinction. It is speculated that only a small change of which books were translated, or with which Americans early Japanese psychologists trained under, would have made Japan into a haven for these still underdog theories.     

The role of neighborhood ecological assets and activity involvement in youth developmental outcomes: Differential impacts of asset poor and asset rich neighborhoods

Developmental system theories recognize that variables from multiple levels of organization within the bioecology of human development contribute to adolescent development, including individual factors, family factors and the neighborhood which includes extracurricular activities. Extracurricular activities provide a context for youth development, and participation has been linked with positive developmental outcomes. This study uses data from a subsample of early adolescents in the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development to determine whether neighborhood assets moderate the effect of adolescent activity involvement on positive and negative developmental outcomes. The relationship between activity involvement and neighborhood assets was different for girls as compared to boys when assessing outcomes of positive youth development, risk behavior, and depression. Consistent with a developmental systems perspective, the findings affirm the need for researchers and practitioners to consider multiple contextual influences when seeking to understand or promote, respectively, positive youth development.     

Information–movement coupling in developing cricketers under changing ecological practice constraints

Changing informational constraints of practice, such as when using ball projection machines, has been shown to significantly affect movement coordination of skilled cricketers. To date, there has been no similar research on movement responses of developing batters, an important issue since ball projection machines are used heavily in cricket development programmes. Timing and coordination of young cricketers (n = 12, age = 15.6 ± 0.7 years) were analyzed during the forward defensive and forward drive strokes when facing a bowling machine and bowler (both with a delivery velocity of 28.14 ± 0.56 m s⁻¹). Significant group performance differences were observed between the practice task constraints, with earlier initiation of the backswing, front foot movement, downswing, and front foot placement when facing the bowler compared to the bowling machine. Peak height of the backswing was higher when facing the bowler, along with a significantly larger step length. Altering the informational constraints of practice caused major changes to the information–movement couplings of developing cricketers. Data from this study were interpreted to emanate from differences in available specifying variables under the distinct practice task constraints. Considered with previous findings, results confirmed the need to ensure representative batting task constraints in practice, cautioning against an over-reliance on ball projection machines in cricket development programmes.     

The problem of delayed causation in a video game: Constant, varied, and filled delays

A first-person shooter video game was adapted for the study of causal decision making within dynamic environments. The video game included groups of three potential targets. Participants chose which of the three targets in each group was producing distal explosions. The actual source of the explosion effect varied in the delay between the firing of its weapon and the effect (from 0 to 2 s), whether these programed average delays were constant or varied from shot to shot, and whether the delays were unfilled or filled with an auditory event. In Experiment 1, participants’ choice accuracy was highest with shorter delays, but there was no effect of filling the delay and some beneficial effect of varying the delay. These results were re-examined in Experiment 2 but with participants experiencing the same average delay for seven subsequent decisions before the next average delay was introduced. In this experiment, men showed a strong and consistent benefit of filling a delay whereas women did not. Participants’ behavior is considered within the context of a model that assumes that choice behavior is driven by experienced contiguity for the target and foils.     

Costs and benefits of cultural value mismatch in the globalising era: A commentary on the special issue “cross-cultural value mismatch: A by-product of migration and population diversity around the world” (IJP,December, 2018)

In this commentary, the author first seeks to counterbalance the current focus on the cost of cultural value mismatch by calling attention to ample evidence in the literature that value mismatch can produce cultural adaptation and resilience in the long run, besides promoting cultural innovations and individual creativity. Second, we propose three factors that differentiate the benefits from the costs of cultural value mismatch. Personal orientation towards integrating heritage and host culture, accurate perception of cultural value differences, and supportive multicultural environments are associated with benefits. In contrast, dichotomous orientation towards one or the other culture, exaggeration of value differences between heritage and host culture, and assimilationist social environments are associated with costs. Third, our analysis of the decoupling between cultural values and ecological niches in the special issue led to observation of bidirectionality in cultural value mismatch: Whereas most articles in the Special Issue focus on the cross-cultural value mismatch that occurs when people move from a more rural, low-resource, less technological ecology into a more urban, high-resource, more technological ecology, we were able to document the effects of value mismatch when movement occurs in the opposite direction.     

State-level impulsivity,affect, and alcohol: A psychometric evaluation of the momentary impulsivity scale across two intensive longitudinal samples

We reexamined the psychometric properties of the Momentary Impulsivity Scale (MIS) in two young adult samples using daily diary (N = 77) and ecological momentary assessment (N = 147). A one-factor between- and within-person structure was supported, though “I felt impatient” loaded poorly within-person. MIS scores consistently related to emotion-driven trait impulsivity; however, MSSDs of MIS scores were unrelated to outcomes after accounting for aggregate MIS scores. We observed positive, within-person correlations with negative, but not positive, affect. Between-person MIS scores correlated with alcohol problems, though within-person MIS-alcohol relations were inconsistent. MIS scores were unrelated to laboratory-based impulsivity tasks. Findings inform the assessment of state-level impulsivity in young adults. Future research should prioritize expanding the MIS to capture the potential multidimensionality of state-level impulsivity.     

Familiarity-Matching: An Ecologically Rational Heuristic for the Relationships-Comparison Task

Previous studies have shown that people often use heuristics in making inferences and that subjective memory experiences, such as recognition or familiarity of objects, can be valid cues for inferences. So far, many researchers have used the binary choice task in which two objects are presented as alternatives (e.g., “Which city has the larger population, city A or city B?”). However, objects can be presented not only as alternatives but also in a question (e.g., “Which country is city X in, country A or country B?”). In such a situation, people can make inferences based on the relationship between the object in the question and each object given as an alternative. In the present study, we call this type of task a “relationships-comparison task.” We modeled the three inference strategies that people could apply to solve it (familiarity-matching [FM; a new heuristic we propose in this study], familiarity heuristic [FH], and knowledge-based inference [KI]) to examine people's inference processes. Through Studies 1, 2, and 3, we found that (a) people tended to rely on heuristics, and that FM (inferences based on similarity in familiarity between objects) well explained participants' inference patterns; (b) FM could work as an ecologically rational strategy for the relationships–comparison task since it could effectively reflect environmental structures, and that the use of FM could be highly replicable and robust; and (c) people could sometimes use a decision strategy like FM, even in their daily lives (consumer behaviors). The nature of the relationships–comparison task and human cognitive processes is discussed.     

A non-linear utility theory with multiple objectives

The aim of this paper is to make optimum several objectives at the same time which would enable a measurement of utility for several possible alternatives. The problem is solved if a strong or weak dominance exists between the alternatives, otherwise a set of incomparable alternatives would be present. Therefore, indifference curve analysis offers the outcome but as these indifference loci are difficult to determine only the characteristics of this analysis are maintained viz. decreasing marginal utility, non-linearity and even non-convexity. Indifference and reference point theory with the Minkowski min–max-metric only respond to these characteristics. Also the problem of generating alternatives during the process is taken into consideration. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Multiobjective Diet Planning Support System Using the Satisficing Trade-off Method

This paper shows that the satisficing trade-off method (STOM), one of the interactive multiobjective programming techniques, can be applied effectively to the formulation of livestock rations. Nutrient requirements are considered as soft constraints whose right-hand sides are flexible to some extent. This is easily done by regarding the values of the right-hand sides of the constraints as aspiration levels of the decision maker for objective functions. In this way a well-balanced solution can be obtained by STOM with automatic trade-off analysis. In STOM, moreover, because the objective functions and the constraint functions are interchangeable, decision makers are not required to consider the role of objective and constraint as fixed from the beginning. The authors’ experience is that the method makes ration formulation very easy, rapid and flexible. In addition, this paper shows how effectively STOM can be applied not only to diet planning but also to nutritional diagnosis. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Multi-Crit. Decis. Anal. 6 : 131–139 (1997) No. of Figures: 1. No. of Tables: 3. No. of References: 28.     

Constraints for Input/Output Logics

In a previous paper we developed a general theory of input/output logics. These are operations resembling inference, but where inputs need not be included among outputs, and outputs need not be reusable as inputs. In the present paper we study what happens when they are constrained to render output consistent with input. This is of interest for deontic logic, where it provides a manner of handling contrary-to-duty obligations. Our procedure is to constrain the set of generators of the input/output system, considering only the maximal subsets that do not yield output conflicting with a given input. When inputs are authorised to reappear as outputs, both maxichoice revision in the sense of Alchourrón/Makinson and the default logic of Poole emerge as special cases, and there is a close relation with Reiter default logic. However, our focus is on the general case where inputs need not be outputs. We show in what contexts the consistency of input with output may be reduced to its consistency with a truth-functional combination of components of generators, and under what conditions constrained output may be obtained by a derivation that is constrained at every step.