A field study of step-up exercises with touch for elderly people

This study assessed step-up exercises appropriate for elderly persons (M age=70.7 yr., SD=7.0). The group did several exercises in 7 sessions per month (average participants per session was 14, SD=3). A 30-sec. chair-stand test (sit-to-stand), questionnaires on activities of daily living, and impressions of the exercises were examined. Activities of daily living were expected to differ on cluster analysis before and after exercise sessions. Each cluster was classified by basic and instrumental activities. The 30-sec. chair-stand test did not significantly improve. Subjects enjoyed doing exercises with touch. Appropriate exercises for elderly persons should promote activities of daily living. Functional movements with touch seem appropriate for maintaining physical fitness and social interaction.     

Response acquisition by zebrafish (Danio rerio) with delayed reinforcement

Zebrafish (Danio rerio) is a common vertebrate animal model in biomedical research and is a promising species for studying how genes interact with environmental factors in determining behavior. The present study investigated how reinforcement parameters affect zebrafish behavior by assessing response acquisition with delayed reinforcement, which has been studied with other species (e.g., rats, pigeons, humans, etc.) but not with zebrafish. Twenty‐four experimentally naïve subjects were exposed to a tandem fixed‐ratio 1 differential‐reinforcement‐of‐other‐behavior x‐s schedule of reinforcement, where x varied across subjects. There were six different delay‐to‐reinforcement durations and sets of four fish were assigned to each delay duration. All of the fish assigned to a 0‐, 0.5‐, or 1‐s delay acquired responding. Two fish acquired responding with a 3‐s delay and one fish appeared to have acquired it with a 6‐s delay although the latter result was less clear. None acquired responding with a 12‐s delay. These results suggest that zebrafish behavior is sensitive to delays to reinforcement and the time frame over which reinforcement is effective may be limited approximately to 6 s. This time frame is shorter than that found with other species. Practical and theoretical implications of the present finding are discussed.     

Rapid proportion comparison with spatial arrays of frequently used meaningful visual symbols

It has been shown that when two arrays of Arabic numerals were briefly presented, observers could accurately indicate which array contained the larger number of a target numeral. This study investigated whether this rapid proportion comparison can be extended to other meaningful symbols that share some of notable properties of Arabic numerals. We tested mainly several Japanese Kanji letters, each of which represents a meaning and can work as a word. Using physically identical stimulus sets that could be interpreted as different types of letters, Experiment 1 first confirmed the rapid proportion comparison with Arabic numerals for Japanese participants. Experiment 2 showed that the rapid proportion comparison can be extended to Kanji numerals. Experiment 3 successfully demonstrated that rapid proportion judgments can be found with non-quantitative Kanji letters that are used frequently. Experiment 4 further demonstrated the rapid proportion comparison with frequently used meaningful non-letter symbols (gender icons). The rapid processing cannot be attributed to fluent processing of familiar items, because it was not found with familiar phonograms (Japanese Kana letters). These findings suggest that the rapid proportion comparison can be commonly found with frequently used meaningful symbols, even though their meaning is not relevant to the task.     

Effects of relational uncertainty in heightening national identification and reactive approach motivation of Japanese

This study investigated whether relational uncertainty poses uncertainty threat, which causes compensatory behaviours among Japanese. We hypothesised that Japanese, as collectivists, would perceive relational uncertainty to pose uncertainty threat. In two experiments, we manipulated relational uncertainty, and confirmed that participants exhibited compensatory reactions to reduce aversive feelings due to it. In Study 1, we conducted direct comparison between relational uncertainty, independent self‐uncertainty and control conditions. The results revealed that participants who were instructed to imagine events pertaining to relational uncertainty heightened national identification as compensation than did participants in the control condition, but independent self‐uncertainty did not provoke such effects. In Study 2, we again manipulated relational uncertainty; however, we also manipulated participants' individualism‐collectivism cultural orientation through priming, and the analyses yielded a significant interaction effect between these variables. Relational uncertainty evoked reactive approach motivation, a cause for compensatory behaviours, among participants primed with collectivism, but not for individualism. It was concluded that the effect of uncertainty on compensatory behaviour is influenced by cultural priming, and that relational uncertainty is important to Japanese.     

Slow movement execution in event-related potentials (P300)

We examined whether slow movement execution has an effect on cognitive and information processing by measuring the P300 component. 8 subjects performed a continuous slow forearm rotational movement using 2 task speeds. Slow (a 30-50% decrease from the subject's Preferred speed) and Very Slow (a 60-80% decrease). The mean coefficient of variation for rotation speed under Very Slow was higher than that under Slow, showing that the subjects found it difficult to perform the Very Slow task smoothly. The EEG score of alpha-1 (8-10 Hz) under Slow Condition was increased significantly more than under the Preferred Condition; however, the increase under Very Slow was small when compared with Preferred. After performing the task. P300 latency under Very Slow increased significantly as compared to that at pretask. Further, P300 amplitude decreased tinder both speed conditions when compared to that at pretask, and a significant decrease was seen under the Slow Condition at Fz, whereas the decrease under the Very Slow Condition was small. These differences indicated that a more complicated neural composition and an increase in subjects' attention might have been involved when the task was performed under the Very Slow Condition. We concluded that slow movement execution may have an influence on cognitive function and may depend on the percentage of decrease from the Preferred speed of the individual.     

Properties of internal speed control and psychophysiological response during continuous forearm rotation movement.

This study investigated the properties of speed control and psychophysiological response when subjects changed movement speed internally. The task consisted of a continuous forearm rotational movement, which 14 women performed under 3 conditions, namely, (1) Preferred: the subject performed the task at a freely selected speed, (2) Slow: the subject changed the speed in two steps from preferred to a slower pace (slow, then very slow), (3) Fast: the subject changed the speed in two steps from preferred to a faster pace (fast, then very fast). Rotation speed and the coefficient of variation were measured to evaluate within-subject variability. Under the Preferred condition, there were no significant differences in rotation speed or coefficient of variation during the trials. However, under Slow and Fast conditions, the standard variation scores and coefficient of variation indicated different tendencies. Under the Fast condition, although the standard variation increased with the faster speed, the coefficient of variation decreased. On the other hand, the coefficient of variation increased under the Slow condition. Preferred speed had a significant positive relationship to the slow, very slow, fast, and very fast speeds. Heart rate (R-R interval) and EEG spectral intensity measurements showed no significant changes among the three conditions: however, respiration frequency significantly increased during Fast as compared to Preferred and Slow conditions. These results suggest that a preferred speed for continuous movement exists and that it is closely related to internal speed control as a psychological criterion. Furthermore, different movement speeds may reflect different psychophysiological responses.     

Examining effects of training duration on humans' resurgence and variability using a novel touchscreen procedure

Resurgence occurs when a previously reinforced and then extinguished target response increases due to reducing/eliminating an alternative source of reinforcement or punishing an alternative response. We evaluated whether duration of reinforcement history for a target response (1) affects the degree to which resurgence is observed in humans and (2) produces different gradients of response generalization around target responding during extinction testing. We arranged a novel touchscreen interface in which university students could swipe a 3D soccer ball to spin any direction. In Phase 1, the first direction swiped became the target and produced points exchangeable for money for 3 or 1 min across 2 groups. The first swipe was recorded but had no programmed consequence in a third group. In Phase 2, swipes 180-degrees from the target resulted in points for 3 min in all groups. Point deliveries ceased for 2 min to test for resurgence in Phase 3. Target responses resurged during testing to a relatively greater extent with longer Phase-1 training but gradients of response generalization did not differ among groups. These findings extend prior research on the role of training duration on resurgence. We discuss methodological and conceptual issues surrounding the assessment of response generalization in resurgence.     

Orthography and phonology in reading Japanese kanji words: Evidence from the semantic decision task with homophones

Correspondences between spelling and sound for Japanese kanji are complex and deep. The meaning of kanji words has generally been assumed to be accessed directly from orthography without phonological mediation. Experiment 1, however, replicated the findings of Van Orden (1987) that subjects made more false-positive errors on homophone foils than they did on nonhomophone controls in a semantic decision task, although they did so only when the foils were orthographically similar to the correct exemplars, which indicates both orthographic and phonological activations of meaning. Experiment 2 showed the same results when subjects were not required to pronounce the target words after semantic decisions, which indicates automatic phonological activation of kanji words. In Experiment 3, under pattern-masking conditions, this homophony effect was reduced but remained on errors, and the orthographic-similarity effect remained strong on both homophone and nonhomophone foils. These results suggest that both orthography and phonology play an important role in the comprehension of kanji words.     

Predator videos and electric shock function as punishers for zebrafish (Danio rerio)

Zebrafish (Danio rerio) are a promising animal model for studying the effects of gene–environment interactions on behavior. Two experiments were conducted to assess punishment effects of presenting predator videos (Indian leaf fish; Nandus nandus) and electric shock on operant approach responses in zebrafish. In Experiment 1, the predator video and shock stimuli were presented upon a response maintained by a single variable‐interval schedule of food reinforcement in different groups of fish. In Experiment 2, the predator video and shock stimuli were presented upon one of two response alternatives maintain by concurrently available variable‐interval schedules of food reinforcement in different groups of fish. Responding decreased when the predator video and shock stimuli were presented relative to their absence in both experiments. Moreover, responding on an unpunished alternative did not reliably decrease in Experiment 2. These results indicate that the decrease in responding resulted from the punishment contingency rather than from elicited species‐specific defense responses or conditioned avoidance. Thus, the predator video and electric shock functioned as punishers of operant behavior for zebrafish. Identifying punishers for this species could lead to research on how gene–environment interactions influence individual differences in sensitivity to punishment.