Measurements of gaze movements while driving

In this study, gaze movements of drivers driving through an intersection were investigated. Gaze movements of drivers in large vehicles were compared with those in small vehicles. There were both similarities and differences in the visual search behaviors of drivers of large and small vehicles. The two groups were similar in that, when approaching an intersection, drivers made repeated saccadic gaze movements; after entering the intersection, saccadic gaze movements were directed ahead in the direction of turning. Differences arose in the frequency and distribution of gaze movements. The number of gaze movements was significantly greater in drivers of large vehicles. The distribution of gaze movements in driving a large vehicle showed a peak at the point 50 to 60 degrees to the right and left of the median plane of the driver. The distribution of gaze movements of drivers of small vehicles showed no peak across the visual field.     

Comparison of Privacy Consciousness Between Younger and Older Adults

The degree of being conscious about privacy for the self and others is known as privacy consciousness. This study aimed to compare privacy consciousness between younger and older adults. Japanese younger (n = 166) and older (n = 145) adults were requested to rate all items in the Privacy Consciousness Scale, which assessed their degree of consciousness about privacy for the self and others and behaviors for maintaining privacy based on this consciousness. Results indicated that older adults scored lower on Consciousness Regarding Privacy of Others and higher on Behaviors Regarding Privacy of Others than younger adults. However, no significant difference was found in Consciousness and Behaviors Regarding Privacy of the Self between younger and older adults.     

Regression II. Development through regression

As shown in our previous paper (‘Regression I. Experimental approaches to regression’, JAP, 65, 2, 345-65), the common mechanism of regression can be described as reversible dedifferentiation, which is understood as a relative increase of the proportion of low-differentiated (older) systems in actualized experience. Experimental data show that regression following disease (chronic tension headache) is followed by adaptation and an increase in system differentiation in that experience domain which contains systems responsible for that adaptation. The results of mathematical modelling support the idea that reversible dedifferentiation can be one of the mechanisms for increasing the effectiveness of adaptation through learning. Reversible dedifferentiation, which is phenomenologically described as regression, is a general mechanism for restructuring the organism-environment interactions in situations where behaviours that were effective in the past become ineffective. Reversible dedifferentiation has evolved as a component of adaptation when new behaviours are formed and large-scale modifications in the existing behaviours are required in the face of changes in the external and/or internal environment. Thus, the authors believe that this article provides evidence for Jung’s view that regression is not only a ‘return’ to past forms of thinking, affects and behaviour, but that regressive processes provide a significant impetus for psychological growth and development.     

Flexing Gender Perception: Brain Potentials Reveal the Cognitive Permeability of Grammatical Information

A growing body of recent research suggests that verbal categories, particularly labels, impact categorization and perception. These findings are commonly interpreted as demonstrating the involvement of language on cognition; however, whether these assumptions hold true for grammatical structures has yet to be investigated. In the present study, we investigated the extent to which linguistic information, namely, grammatical gender categories, structures cognition to subsequently influence categorical judgments and perception. In a nonverbal categorization task, French–English bilinguals and monolingual English speakers made gender-associated judgments about a set of image pairs while event-related potentials were recorded. The image sets were composed of an object paired with either a female or male face, wherein the object was manipulated for their conceptual gender relatedness and grammatical gender congruency to the sex of the following target face. The results showed that grammatical gender modulated the N1 and P2/VPP, as well as the N300 exclusively for the French–English bilinguals, indicating the inclusion of language in the mechanisms associated with attentional bias and categorization. In contrast, conceptual gender information impacted the monolingual English speakers in the later N300 time window given the absence of a comparable grammatical feature. Such effects of grammatical categories in the early perceptual stream have not been found before, and further provide grounds to suggest that language shapes perception.     

Repeatability of mae-geri-keage in traditional karate: a three-dimensional analysis with black-belt karateka

In karate, performance also depends on a correct body shape, and the repeatability of standardized movements conditions the effectiveness of techniques. The execution of mae-geri-keage (frontal snap kick) was studied in 13 karateka (1st-5th dan). The 3D trajectories of 13 body landmarks were analyzed by an optoelectronic instrument while each karateka performed 10 repetitions of the movement. For each karateka and repetition, the standard deviations of the spatial coordinates x, y, z for each landmark were computed. A total standard deviation of the single participant was also calculated. Two experienced karateka performed with the best repeatability (smaller standard deviation) while executing the studied kick. Generally, the best repeatability was observed in the horizontal plane. The lower variability was observed in hips and head. Ankle and knee of the dominant limb had the worse. The method could detect athletes particularly gifted for the discipline. Moreover, it could help in the identification of those parts of body that do not repeat the movement with the desired precision.     

Cultural variation in correspondence bias: the critical role of attitude diagnosticity of socially constrained behavior

Upon observing another's socially constrained behavior, people often ascribe to the person an attitude that corresponds to the behavior (called the correspondence bias [CB]). The authors found that when a socially constrained behavior is still diagnostic of the actor's attitude, both Americans and Japanese show an equally strong CB. A major cultural difference occurred when the behavior was minimally diagnostic. Demonstrating their persistent bias toward dispositional attribution, Americans showed a strong CB. But Japanese did not show any CB (Study 1). Furthermore, a mediational analysis revealed that this cross-cultural difference was due in part to the nature of explicit inferences generated online during attitudinal judgment (Study 2). Implications for the cultural grounding of social perception are discussed.     

Use of subjective estimation in motor skill tests of young children: judgment based on observation of behavior in daily life

This study assessed what motor skill tests were appropriate by observing 636 young children's behavior in daily life (low-aged classes, M = 3.7 yr.; middle-aged classes, M = 4.7 yr.; high-aged classes, M = 5.7 yr.). A homeroom teacher and an assistant teacher estimated motor achievement as pass-or-fail, and then judged pass-or-fail based on practical testing. Estimate-re-estimate agreement, interrater agreement, and agreement between estimated values and measured values were examined for 27 items, e.g., skipping, bouncing a ball, and turning on one leg. Estimate-re-estimate agreement was high on the whole. Interrater agreement ranged from 34% to 100% for 3-yr.-olds, 21% to 100% for 4-yr.-olds, and 89% to 100% for 5-yr.-olds. Agreement between estimated values and measured values greater than 80% was found in most items for 5-yr.olds (14 items). After examining the above-mentioned agreements, 26 items were selected as possible tests to judge motor development, using a pass-or-fail, from the observation of young children's behavior in daily life.     

The effect of prolonged viewing on the recognition of global and local levels of hierarchically constructed patterns

Two experiments were carried out to examine delays in the recognition of test patterns after prolonged (25 s) viewing of an adaptation pattern which was composed of either the same or different local components and global structures. In the case of geometric patterns that contained a few relatively large elements, there were significant delays of about 70 ms in the global decision task when the test and adaptation stimuli (TS and AS) were of the same pattern, or when they had the same structure but different components. In contrast, in the case of geometric patterns that were composed of many relatively small elements, such a figural relation between the AS and the TS did not affect the recognition speed of the TSs either in the global or in the local decision task. These results suggest that prolonged viewing reduces the efficiency of global processing and that such a disruptive effect occurs depending upon the number and the relative size of the elements that make up the whole pattern.     

Attentional modulation of self-motion perception

Attentional effects on self-motion perception (vection) were examined by using a large display in which vertical stripes containing upward or downward moving dots were interleaved to balance the total motion energy for the two directions. The dots moving in the same direction had the same colour, and subjects were asked to attend to one of the two colours. Vection was perceived in the direction opposite to that of non-attended motion. This indicates that non-attended visual motion dominates vection. The attentional effect was then compared with effects of relative depth. Clear attentional effects were again found when there was no relative depth between dots moving in opposite directions, but the effect of depth was much stronger for stimuli with a relative depth. Vection was mainly determined by motion in the far depth plane, although some attentional effects were evident even in this case. These results indicate that attentional modulation for vection exists, but that it is overridden when there is a relative depth between the two motion components.     

Perceived shifts of flashed stimuli by visible and invisible object motion

Perceived positions of flashed stimuli can be altered by motion signals in the visual field-position capture (Whitney and Cavanagh, 2000 Nature Neuroscience 3 954-959). We examined whether position capture of flashed stimuli depends on the spatial relationship between moving and flashed stimuli, and whether the phenomenal permanence of a moving object behind an occluding surface (tunnel effect; Michotte 1950 Acta Psychologica 7 293-322) can produce position capture. Observers saw two objects (circles) moving vertically in opposite directions, one in each visual hemifield. Two horizontal bars were simultaneously flashed at horizontally collinear positions with the fixation point at various timings. When the movement of the object was fully visible, the flashed bar appeared shifted in the motion direction of the circle. But this position-capture effect occurred only when the bar was presented ahead of or on the moving circle. Even when the motion trajectory was covered by an opaque surface and the bar was flashed after complete occlusion of the circle, the position-capture effect was still observed, though the positional asymmetry was less clear. These results show that movements of both visible and 'hidden' objects can modulate the perception of positions of flashed stimuli and suggest that a high-level representation of 'objects in motion' plays an important role in the position-capture effect.