A Capuchin monkey (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Cebus apella</Emphasis>) recognizes when people do and do not know the location of food

In a previous study, Kuroshima and colleagues demonstrated that capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) learned to discriminate between a "knower" who inspected a box for food, and a "guesser" who did not. The aim of the present study was to specify whether the subjects learned a simple conditional discrimination or a causal relationship that seeing leads to knowing. In experiment 1, we introduced five types of novel containers to two subjects. Each container was of different shape and color. The subjects gradually learned to reach toward the container the knower suggested. In experiment 2, we diversified the behavior of the knower and the guesser. In experiment 3, in order to eliminate the possibility of discrimination based on differences in the magnitude and the complexity of two trainers, we equated their behaviors. One subject adapted to the novel behaviors of the knower and the guesser, successfully discriminating the two trainers. Thus this monkey clearly learned to use the inspecting action of the knower and the non-inspecting action of the guesser as a discriminative cue to recognize the baited container. This result suggests that one capuchin monkey learned to recognize the relationship between seeing and knowing.     

Alcohol as social lubricant.

This study examines how consuming alcohol differentially affects the communicative behavior and perceptions of high and low social self‐esteem (SSE) women as they engage in a brief interaction with a flirtatious male. Alcohol myopia theory proposes that alcohol affects behavior when it blocks a person's normal inhibitions about enacting a behavior. It was predicted that low SSE women would be more inhibited when talking to a flirtatious male than would high SSE women and, therefore administration of a social self‐esteem measure and random assignment to an alcoholic or nonalcoholic beverage condition, participants (N=50) talked with an attractive, flirtatious male confederate. Low SSE women were less anxious and self‐disclosed more when drinking than when sober, whereas high SSE women were not significantly affected by alcohol consumption. The discussion highlights the complex and often contradictory effects of alcohol consumption on social interaction.     

Clustered Common Factor Exploration in Factor Analysis

Psychometrika - The factor analysis (FA) model does not permit unique estimation of the common and unique factor scores. This weakness is notorious as the factor indeterminacy in FA. Luckily, some...     

Examination of the Japanese version of the Fear of COVID-19 Scale among Adults Using Classical Test Theory and Item Response Theory1, 2

Globally, the COVID-19 pandemic has impaired every aspect of life, especially causing much psychological damage—for instance, increasing the risk of suicide. Intense fear and anxiety are considered to play a central role in mental health problems. This study examined the psychological properties of the Japanese version of the Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S) using classical test theory (CTT) and item response theory (IRT). Five hundred fifty participants aged 18–69 years and from across Japan completed questionnaires, including the Japanese FCV-19S, the Japanese Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-15 (DASS-15), and the Japanese version of the Kessler 6 (K6). CTT showed that each item of the Japanese FCV-19S had no ceiling and floor effect and was close to the normal distribution, and IRT revealed that each item had an appropriate parameter of discrimination and difficulty. Finally, the Japanese FCV-19S was shown to have an acceptable reliability and moderate good concurrent validity. Consequently, the Japanese FCV-19S has robust psychometric properties and can be useful for early detection of adults impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.     

Exploring the neural basis of cognition: multi-modal links between human fMRI and macaque neurophysiology

Although functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with sophisticated behavioral paradigms has enabled the investigation of increasingly higher-level cognitive functions in humans, these studies seem to lose touch with neurophysiological studies in macaque monkeys. The application of fMRI and other MRI-based techniques to macaque brains allows studies in the two species to be linked. fMRI in human and macaque subjects using equivalent cognitive tasks enables direct comparisons of the functional brain architecture, even for high-level cognitive functions. Combinations of functional or structural MRI and microelectrode techniques provide ways to explore functional brain networks at multiple spatiotemporal scales. These approaches would illuminate the neurophysiological underpinnings of human cognitive functions by integrating human functional neuroimaging with macaque single-unit recordings.     

Dogs recall their owner's face upon hearing the owner's voice

We tested whether dogs have a cross-modal representation of human individuals. We presented domestic dogs with a photo of either the owner's or a stranger's face on the LCD monitor after playing back a voice of one of those persons. A voice and a face matched in half of the trials (Congruent condition) and mismatched in the other half (Incongruent condition). If our subjects activate visual images of the voice, their expectation would be contradicted in Incongruent condition. It would result in the subjects’ longer looking times in Incongruent condition than in Congruent condition. Our subject dogs looked longer at the visual stimulus in Incongruent condition than in Congruent condition. This suggests that dogs actively generate their internal representation of the owner's face when they hear the owner calling them. This is the first demonstration that nonhuman animals do not merely associate auditory and visual stimuli but also actively generate a visual image from auditory information. Furthermore, our subject also looked at the visual stimulus longer in Incongruent condition in which the owner's face followed an unfamiliar person's voice than in Congruent condition in which the owner's face followed the owner's voice. Generating a particular visual image in response to an unfamiliar voice should be difficult, and any expected images from the voice ought to be more obscure or less well defined than that of the owners. However, our subjects looked longer at the owner's face in Incongruent condition than in Congruent condition. This may indicate that dogs may have predicted that it should not be the owner when they heard the unfamiliar person's voice.     

Constrained multidimensional unfolding of confusion matrices: Goal point and slide vector models

Two constrained multidimensional unfolding models, the goal point and slide vector models, are proposed for analyzing confusion matrices. In both models, the row and column stimuli are expressed as two sets of points in a low-dimensional space, where the difference vector connecting a column point to the corresponding row point indicates the change in the stimulus representation through a cognitive process. The difference vector is constrained by the hypothesis that the trend in the representational change is invariant across stimuli: the goal point model constrains all difference vectors to point toward a single point, and the slide vector model constrains all difference vectors to be parallel to each other. In both models the coordinates of points are estimated by the maximum-likelihood method. Examples illustrate that the two models allow us to examine hypotheses about invariant trends in representational changes and to grasp such trends from the resulting configurations.     

A randomized controlled trial on the long-term effects of a 1-month behavioral weight control program assisted by computer tailored advice

OBJECTIVES: To examine the long-term effects of a new behavioral weight control program (Kenkou-tatsujin, KT program). The program consisted of twice-interactive letter communications including computer-tailored personal advice on treatment needs and behavioral modification. DESIGN: A randomized controlled trial comparing Group KM: KT program with 6-month weight and targeted behavior's self-monitoring, Group K: KT program only, Group BM: an untailored self-help booklet with 7-month self-monitoring of weight and walking, and Group B: the self-help booklet only. PARTICIPANTS: Two hundreds and five overweight Japanese females were recruited via a local newspaper. MEASUREMENTS: Weight loss (body weight, BMI, reduction quotient, etc.) and behavioral changes (daily eating, exercise and sleeping habits). FINDINGS: A significant weight loss was observed in all groups. At 1 month, Groups KM and K were superior, but at 7 months, the mean weight loss was significantly more in Group KM than the other 3 groups. At 7 months, 8 dietary habits and 4 physical activities were improved in all subjects. Habitual improvement was related to the weight loss in Groups KM and K at 1 month.     

In-situ X-ray diffraction during tensile deformation of ultrafine-grained copper using synchrotron radiation

At the synchrotron facility, Super Photon Ring – 8 GeV, in-situ X-ray diffraction during tensile deformation was conducted on ultrafine-grained Cu with a grain size of about 300 nm fabricated by equal-channel angular pressing. The diffraction profile was observed with the time resolution of about 1 s using multiple MYTHEN detectors, and the diffraction angle and the full-width at half-maximum of some Bragg peaks were determined using the pseudo-Voigt function. From the analysis of Bragg peaks, it was found out that there are microscopically three regions; elastic, plastic and transition regions. The 0.2% proof stress obtained from the stress–strain curve locates within the microscopic transition region. Microstrain was evaluated using the Williamson–Hall method and the dislocation density was also obtained from the microstrain. The dislocation density starts increasing before 0.2% proof stress, which is associated with dislocation bow-out and emission from grain boundaries. The Taylor relationship seems to be still satisfied after 0.2% proof stress.