Inhibition of return using discrimination of location

The present study investigated "inhibition of return" which refers to increased response latency when the target in a location discrimination task appears in the same location on consecutive trials. Location discrimination tasks were performed by 28 university students (19-21 years of age) in two experiments. In Exp. 1 the task was to press a left or right button in response to a stimulus displayed on a computer screen. The first condition manipulated stimulus-response compatibility which resulted in changing the inhibition of return. Inhibition of return was stronger when the condition was stimulus-response incompatibility. This result shows that inhibition of return functions strongly under incompatible conditions. A second condition required performance of dual tasks in Exp. 2. Again, changes in inhibition of return were seen. These results show that inhibition of return functions strongly under both dual task and incompatible conditions. Inhibition of return was interpreted as functioning strongly when the task was more difficult.     

Effects of decision-making on reactions to an evaluational stressor

The present study tested the hypothesis that an opportunity to make decisions enhances perceived control. This hypothesis predicts that decision-making will reduce the adverse effects of stress. Subjects worked on an intellectual task and their stress reactions were assessed using subjective and behavioral measures. Decision-making improved the highly anxious subjects' persistence with the task. This finding supports the hypothesis. However, less anxious subjects persisted less after being allowed to make decisions. Several explanations positing possible cognitive and motivational processes of the less anxious subjects are offered.     

Effect of Aging on Processes of Motor Inhibition

The processes of inhibiting uninstructed motor responses were examined to identify age differences. Younger adults (n = 40) and older adults (n = 38) participated in two experiments using the Stimulus‐Response Compatibility task. They were asked to push the switch on the side contralateral to the stimulus. The results indicated that responses induced by visual stimuli were gradually inhibited as a result of repeated trials on the contralateral (not‐induced) side, and no age differences were noted. The addition of a color‐discrimination task to the Stimulus‐Response Compatibility task inhibited impulsive response induced by visual stimuli in younger adults only. These results indicate that certain processes of inhibiting motor responses are affected by aging, whereas other processes remain unaffected.     

Age Differences in Variables Affecting Motor Inhibition

This study's purpose was to analyze the effects of aging on motor control, with a specific focus on analyzing the characteristics of motor inhibition failure. A continuous‐response task was conducted with 35 younger adults and 35 older adults, under several conditions and using two types of switches. The results indicated the following: (a) in older adults, response type and auditory stimuli strongly affected motor inhibition failure, and (b) in younger adults, motor inhibition failures rarely occurred. When they did occur, they were strongly affected by factors directing visual stimuli. These results suggest age‐related differences in variables that affect motor inhibition, and that movement and the associated nervous excitation might strongly affect motor inhibition in older adults.     

Self-motion perception compresses time experienced in return travel

It is often anecdotally reported that time experienced in return travel (back to the start point) seems shorter than time spent in outward travel (travel to a new destination). Here, we report the first experimental results showing that return travel time is experienced as shorter than the actual time. This discrepancy is induced by the existence of self-motion perception.     

The mental number line in depth revealed by vection

To explore how numbers are represented in depth in our mental space, we asked participants to sequentially speak random numbers while they observed forward/backward vection. We found that participants tended to generate larger numbers when they perceived backward self-motion. The results suggest that numerical magnitudes were topographically mapped onto our mental space from front to rear in an ascending order.     

Attentional load inhibits vection

In this study, we examined the effects of cognitive task performance on the induction of vection. We hypothesized that, if vection requires attentional resources, performing cognitive tasks requiring attention should inhibit or weaken it. Experiment 1 tested the effects on vection of simultaneously performing a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task. The results revealed that the RSVP task affected the subjective strength of vection. Experiment 2 tested the effects of a multiple-object-tracking (MOT) task on vection. Simultaneous performance of the MOT task decreased the duration and subjective strength of vection. Taken together, these findings suggest that vection induction requires attentional resources.     

Inhibition of vection by red

We investigated the effects of colors on vection induction. Expanding optical flows during one’s forward self-motion were simulated by moving dots. The dots and the background were painted in equiluminant red and green. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that vection was weaker when the background was red than when the background was green. In addition, Experiment 3 showed that vection was weaker when the moving dots were red than when the dots were green. Experiment 4 demonstrated that red dots on a red background induced very weak vection, as compared with green dots on a green background. In Experiments 5 and 6, we showed that the present results could not be explained by a luminance artifact. Furthermore, Experiment 7 showed that a moving red grating induced weaker vection than did a green one. We concluded that a red visual stimulus inhibits vection.     

Affective auditory stimulus database: An expanded version of the International Affective Digitized Sounds (IADS-E)

Using appropriate stimuli to evoke emotions is especially important for researching emotion. Psychologists have provided several standardized affective stimulus databases—such as the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) and the Nencki Affective Picture System (NAPS) as visual stimulus databases, as well as the International Affective Digitized Sounds (IADS) and the Montreal Affective Voices as auditory stimulus databases for emotional experiments. However, considering the limitations of the existing auditory stimulus database studies, research using auditory stimuli is relatively limited compared with the studies using visual stimuli. First, the number of sample sounds is limited, making it difficult to equate across emotional conditions and semantic categories. Second, some artificially created materials (music or human voice) may fail to accurately drive the intended emotional processes. Our principal aim was to expand existing auditory affective sample database to sufficiently cover natural sounds. We asked 207 participants to rate 935 sounds (including the sounds from the IADS-2) using the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) and three basic-emotion rating scales. The results showed that emotions in sounds can be distinguished on the affective rating scales, and the stability of the evaluations of sounds revealed that we have successfully provided a larger corpus of natural, emotionally evocative auditory stimuli, covering a wide range of semantic categories. Our expanded, standardized sound sample database may promote a wide range of research in auditory systems and the possible interactions with other sensory modalities, encouraging direct reliable comparisons of outcomes from different researchers in the field of psychology.