Children’s scale errors are a natural consequence of learning to associate objects with actions: A computational model

Young children sometimes attempt an action on an object, which is inappropriate because of the object size—they make scale errors. Existing theories suggest that scale errors may result from immaturities in children's action planning system, which might be overpowered by increased complexity of object representations or developing teleofunctional bias. We used computational modelling to emulate children's learning to associate objects with actions and to select appropriate actions, given object shape and size. A computational Developmental Deep Model of Action and Naming (DDMAN) was built on the dual‐route theory of action selection, in which actions on objects are selected via a direct (nonsemantic or visual) route or an indirect (semantic) route. As in case of children, DDMAN produced scale errors: the number of errors was high at the beginning of training and decreased linearly but did not disappear completely. Inspection of emerging object–action associations revealed that these were coarsely organized by shape, hence leading DDMAN to initially select actions based on shape rather than size. With experience, DDMAN gradually learned to use size in addition to shape when selecting actions. Overall, our simulations demonstrate that children's scale errors are a natural consequence of learning to associate objects with actions.     

Joint Effects of Corporate Positions and Prospects on Perceptions of Business Ethics Among Japanese Students: A Reflection of Collectivistic Cultures1

This study was designed to account for inconsistencies between past research indicating that executives in general are more ethically oriented than employees. The reality in Japan's society is that it has been mostly top executives who violate business ethics. Japanese students (N = 201) assumed that they were “executives” or “employees” in a manufacturing company, and their company had “high” or “low” financial prospects. The high‐prospect executives were most ethically oriented, while the low‐prospect executives were least ethically oriented. Ethical orientation did not change across the two prospect conditions for the employees. The findings are interpreted in terms of ethical dissonance created by dual pressures from acceptance of Western global ethical standards and strength of indigenous collectivistic ethical standards.     

Multichannel fNIRS assessment of overt and covert confrontation naming

Confrontation naming tasks assess cognitive processes involved in the main stage of word production. However, in fMRI, the occurrence of movement artifacts necessitates the use of covert paradigms, which has limited clinical applications. Thus, we explored the feasibility of adopting multichannel functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to assess language function during covert and overt naming tasks. Thirty right-handed, healthy adult volunteers underwent both naming tasks and cortical hemodynamics measurement using fNIRS. The overt naming task recruited the classical left-hemisphere language areas (left inferior frontal, superior and middle temporal, precentral, and postcentral gyri) exemplified by an increase in the oxy-Hb signal. Activations were bilateral in the middle and superior temporal gyri. However, the covert naming task recruited activation only in the left-middle temporal gyrus. The activation patterns reflected a major part of the functional network for overt word production, suggesting the clinical importance of fNIRS in the diagnosis of aphasic patients.     

Age,Emotion Regulation,and Affect in Adulthood: The Mediating Role of Cognitive Reappraisal

Evidence indicates that older adults experience high levels of emotional well‐being. However, little is known empirically about the underlying mechanism of this state. The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether emotion regulation mediates the link between age and affect in adulthood. The sample consisted of 516 Japanese participants aged 30 (±1), 50 (±1), and 70 (±1) years, who were registered with an Internet survey company. Cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression were measured as emotion regulation strategies. Positive and negative affect were assessed. Older participants reported lower negative affect than younger participants, while positive affect was not correlated with age. Cognitive reappraisal partially mediated the relationship between age and affect, whereas expressive suppression did not. The results suggested that age‐related increase in cognitive reappraisal could contribute to improvements in affect, but that another adaptive form of emotion regulation may mediate the relationship between age and affect. Our study thus indicates that developments in emotion regulation could explain the mechanism of stable everyday affect throughout adulthood, and that researchers should further explore another form of adaptive emotion regulation.     

Neurotic perfectionism, perceived stress, and self-esteem among Japanese men: a prospective study

The present study examined the relationship between self-report scores of neurotic perfectionism and of perceived stress and self-esteem 6 wk. later among 146 Japanese male college students. Hierarchical regression analysis indicated that scores for neurotic perfectionism accounted for statistically significant but functionally small variance (4% and 3%) in scores for perceived stress and self-esteem obtained at Time 2 (6 wk. later), after controlling for the scores for perceived stress and self-esteem at Time 1, respectively.     

Working together or separately? The role of identity and cultural self‐construal in well‐being among Japanese youth

Young people develop a sense of personal identity during the transition to adulthood, a time when individuals choose and adhere to a specific set of goals, values, and beliefs. In addition, in many contemporary Asian societies, youth are expected to acquire and balance traditional and Western cultural views of the self — that is, independent and interdependent self‐construal. To understand the relationships between the personal and cultural facets of the transition to adulthood, this study examined (a) associations between personal identity and well‐being and (b) the possible moderating role of cultural self‐construal (independence and interdependence) in this link. These hypotheses were tested in a sample of 520 Japanese university students (52.6% female). The results indicated that personal identity predicted each dimension of well‐being, suggesting that the importance of personal identity in promoting youth's well‐being can be understood as a universal phenomenon. Moreover, because the moderating role of self‐construal in the links between identity and well‐being was found to be limited, personal identity can be viewed as operating separately from self‐construal in well‐being to a large extent. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

There’s no ball without noise: cats’ prediction of an object from noise

We used an expectancy violation procedure to ask whether cats could use a causal rule to infer the presence of an unseen object on hearing the noise it made inside a container and predict its appearance when the container was turned over. We presented cats with either an object dropping out of an opaque container or no object dropping out (turning-over phase) after producing either a rattling sound by shaking the container with the object inside, or no sound (shaking phase). The cats were then allowed to freely explore the experimental environment (exploration phase). The relation between the sound and the object matched with physical laws in half of the trials (congruent condition) and mismatched in the other half (incongruent condition). Inferring the presence of an unseen object from the noise was predicted to result in longer looking time in the incongruent condition. The prediction was supported by the cats’ behavior during the turning-over phase. The results suggest that cats used a causal-logical understanding of auditory stimuli to predict the appearance of invisible objects. The ecology of cats’ natural hunting style may favor the ability for inference on the basis of sounds.     

Relationships between marital satisfaction,resources, and power strategies

A study was conducted to determine usefulness of the Falbo and Peplau model for understanding the power strategies and marital satisfaction of 42 nonstudent married couples. In addition, this study examined the impact of imbalanced resources on power strategy use and marital satisfaction. Overall, the results supported the hypothesis that people who see themselves as Equal Partners are more satisfied with their relationship than Traditional Partners. The results also indicated that Equal Partners reported using fewer strategies overall in trying to get their way. Thus, the greater use of power strategies may be associated with being in an imbalanced resource relationship, such as a traditional marriage. Furthermore, the results of this study supported the expectation that marital dissatisfaction is associated with the use of indirect strategies. Although husbands and wives overall were not found to differ in their power strategy use, there was a suggestion that traditional wives used more power strategies, regardless of type, than traditional husbands.This research was based upon the first author's doctoral dissertation at the University of Texas at Austin.     

Effects of syntactic information on semantic access of ambiguous verbs in spoken language comprehension: Evidence from a cross‐modal priming experiment1

Abstract: The aim of this study was to examine how syntactic information affects the semantic processing of ambiguous verbs in spoken Japanese. The effect of a postpositional particle on semantic access of an ambiguous verb at the end of the sentence was demonstrated in two kinds of sentences, S‐ga‐V sentences (subject, subjective postpositional particle, and ambiguous verb) and O‐wo‐V sentences (object, objective postpositional particle, and ambiguous verb). A cross‐modal priming method was used in which a target noun was presented visually in Kanji (Chinese) characters either one syllable before the end or immediately after the end of the ambiguous verb. Weak multiple priming occurred in the one‐syllable‐before condition, followed by selective access in the immediately after condition, but this multiple access was partially constrained by the preceding postpositional particle. A brief occurrence of multiple access and rapid transition to selective access were detected. Furthermore, objective particles were found to have stronger constraints on multiple access than on subjective particles. A connectionist model using a constraint‐based lexical approach was consistent with the experimental results.     

Infant's action skill dynamically modulates parental action demonstration in the dyadic interaction

When interacting with infants, human adults modify their behaviours in an exaggerated manner. Previous studies have demonstrated that infant‐directed modification affects the infant's behaviour. However, little is known about how infant‐directed modification is elicited during infant–parent interaction. We investigated whether and how the infant's behaviour affects the mother's action during an interaction. We recorded three‐dimensional information of cup movements while mothers demonstrated a cup‐nesting task during interaction with their infants aged 11 to 13 months. Analyses revealed that spatial characteristics of the mother's task demonstration clearly changed depending on the infant's object manipulation. In particular, the variance in the distance that the cup was moved decreased after the infant's cup nesting and increased after the infant's task‐irrelevant manipulation (e.g. cup banging). This pattern was not observed for mothers with 6‐ to 8‐month‐olds, who do not have the fine motor skill to perform the action. These results indicate that the infant's action skill dynamically affects the infant‐directed action and suggest that the mother is sensitive to the infant's potential to learn a novel action. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNS2IHwLIhg&feature=youtu.be