[in Japanese]

View full abstract

The speech rate conversion technology of the cell phone is designed to assist hearing of older people. This study investigated subjective evaluation of communication with and without this technology. In the experiment, 12 pairs of old and young participants engaged in cell phone conversation, and at the second of three trials, the speech rate conversion system of old user's cell phone was turned on. The analysis of evaluation of each trial showed that, with the system, old users felt easy to converse and, in contrast, young users felt hard to hear. These results are discussed regarding asymmetrical effects of communication assistance system and conversational entrainment.

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

The present study aims to compare the effect of the emotional elaboration on incidental memory with that of the semantic elaboration. Participants were presented targets and asked to rate the congruity of a emotional information elicited by it in the emotional elaboration condition and that of a trait of the object named by it in the semantic elaboration condition, followed by unexpected free recall. The results of Exp. 1 indicated the superiority of the emotional elaboration to the semantic elaboration. But the results of Exp. 2 using different procedures did not show the superiority of the emotional elaboration. In Exp.3, participants were asked to generate the information of the emotion elicited by a targetor or that of the trait of the object named by it. The result of Exp. 3 revealed that the emotional elaboration led to better recall than the semantic elaboration in the middle stage of retrieval.

View full abstract

We examined relationship between individual difference in face memory and eye fixation patterns during face learning. Forty five participants reported the impression for each of 20 unknown faces. After 8 minutes delay, they performed a recognition memory task on still pictures of the faces. The participants were divided into good and poor memory groups based on the recognition memory data. Both groups made longer fixations on the internal region (eyes, nose, and mouth) than the external region (e.g., cheeks and forehead). Furthermore, the fixation time to the internal region was longer in the good memory group than the poor memory group, whereas that to the external region was longer in the poor than the good memory group. This finding suggests that the fixations on the internal region facilitate memory of the faces, and individual difference in face memory is partly attributable to the difference in eye fixation patterns on faces.

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

Remembering some of the studied items (target) impairs subsequent remembrance of the relevant items. This phenomenon is called retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) and is explained by suppression account which suppresses interference from the competing items in order to facilitate the retrieval of the target (Anderson, 2003). Retrieval specificity (RIF occurs when the target is retrieved, however, RIF does not occur when the target is simply presented) is one of the properties supporting suppression account. This property cannot explain by change of associative strength, such as blocking. We examined whether RIF influence by any types of retrieval practice (normal, last-letter, or category-name) using within-participant design. The results showed that RIF did not occur in the last-letter and the category-name retrieval condition. These results may reflect the property of the retrieval specificity. However, we could not replicate RIF in the normal retrieval condition. Because the number of items per condition decreased, we might not be able to detect the effect well. From these results, we need to discuss the relationship between detection of inhibitory effect and the number of items per condition.

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

This study investigate the hemispheric differences in proper name processing contribute to the resolution of TOT (tip-of-the-tongue) states. In our experiments, we used a hybrid procedure that involved a proper name TOT-induced phase, TOT target priming phase, and resolution by naming phase. Japanese celebrity faces and names were chosen for stimulus to induce proper name TOTs. Fourty participants tried to retrieve a name of presented face, and made an answer from four altenatives (DK, FOK, TOT, K). After a TOT target name or irrelevant name was presented as a prime in lvf-RH or rvf-LH, participants read aloud the target name and RTs were measured. As a result, greater priming effect for the TOT target name presented to the lvf-RH was revealed. Therefore, we suggest the finding that processing underlying sudden and clear pop-up resolution of TOT is executed within RH advantage.

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

Kasahara & Ochi (2006) verified the hypotheses that the process for voice identification and the process for spoken words are done through different psychological process. However the result suggested that there was a ceiling effect in the record of voice recognition. We considered the result by using other participants. They were asked to give attention to target's voice or spoken words and memorize to it. After target's voice presentation, we tested of voice identification task and spoken words recognition on them. These results suggest that in the process of voice identification, a certain amount of perceptual resource are allocated automatically, on the other hand, in the process of perception of spoken words, perceptual resource allocation adjust numbers depending on the situation.

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

This study investigated which of the two, "operating representation" or "identifying representation," causes the representation-based interference forgetting in WM span performances. A letter mental rotation task demanding spatial operations of a verbal representation was employed as the processing task with verbal or spatial memory materials in the WM span tests. If the greater amount of the processing task during retention duration causes decrease only in the spatial memory span, any interference in memory traces should be attributed to the spatial operations of the letter. If it causes decrease in both the verbal and spatial memory spans, any interference in memory traces should be attributed to simple identification of the letter, because it includes both the verbal and spatial representations. Results supported the latter prediction. Therefore, we suggest that interference of processing requirements with memory traces in a WM span test occurs when the representation to be processed is identified.

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

Environmental context dependent effect refers to better memory performance of items when the study and test contexts (cf. backgrounds) are congruent than when they are incongruent. The present study examined the effect of congruency between study and test backgrounds on the false recognition. At the study, list of words (light, moon...) which related to a lure (sun) were presented on a background context. After 1 day, at the test, recognition test was conducted in the congruent condition in which the test words were presented on the same background as the study or in the incongruent condition in which the test words were presented on the different background. The results showed that old responses to the studied items and the lure increased when the backgrounds between study and test were congruent than when they were incongruent. This finding indicates that activation of items at the study mediates environmental context dependent effect.

View full abstract

This study investigated that deception about an eye-witnessed crime leads to memory distortion when participants deceive different targets. Previous study has showed that deception about the crime leads memory distortion and there were two deceptive strategies: Commission strategy and Omission strategy (Christianson & Bylin, 1999). In Tanaka (2005) has showed that Omission strategy inhibited memory rehearsal and leads to memory distortion. There are many factors in deception in addition to deceptive strategy, for example, targets of deception, quantity of deception. In this study, we hypothesize that memory performances are differ by lie targets because past study showed that memory performance of eyewitnesses were differ by subjects in a crime (Yuille & Cutshal, 1986). So we examine that memory performances after deception are differ by targets of deception in the crime event.

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

In mood-congruent effect, it is not clear whether retrieval of mood-congruent memory is facilitated, or retrieval of mood-incongruent memory is inhibited. Furthermore, the effect of mood on episodes in retrieving is different when the episodes are related or unrelated with a mood induced task (Sakaki, 2007). In this study using "guided imagery task" in which participants read a fictional story and imagined as if they were in that story, participants' mood (positive, negative, or neutral) was induced. Then, we examined the influence of mood in retrieving episodes related or unrelated with the task. As a result, participants in the positive condition retrieved positive episodes more than in the neutral condition regardless of episodes related or unrelated to the task. There was no significant difference between the negative condition and the neutral condition. These results suggest a possibility that in positive mood retrieval of positive episodes is facilitated.

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

The results of experiment 1 of Marsh, McDermott, & Roediger (2004) showed the possibility that false recognition occurred because of semantic activation in retrieval. However, in their results, the recognition rate of related words was not higher than unrelated words in non-study condition. From the above facts, it was unlikely that each related word itself was activated, which indicated that false recognition may have occurred even if each related word itself is not activated. Therefore, it can be thought that there are both implicit and explicit activation of each related word. In this study, participants were required to encode related words either explicitly (explicit condition) or implicitly (implicit condition), and we examined whether there is two distinct processes on the occurrence of false recognition.

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

Two studies were conducted with the aim of explaining the disruptive effect of irrelevant auditory stimuli(speech sound/ office noise) on an oral reading text recall task (experiment 1) and an oral reading text recall task with proofreading (experiment 2). In experiment 1, the amount of disruption caused by speech sound was significantly larger than that caused by office noise. In experiment 2, only the office noise disrupted the recall performance. The results revealed two points. First, oral reading text recall is disrupted by both speech sound and office noise; however, the amount of disruption by the speech sound is significantly larger. Second, the disruptive effect of speech sound shares a cognitive process with phonological proofreading. These results were interpreted in terms of Cowan's attention and memory frame (1995).

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

On face memory, previous researches have discussed some encoding strategies, for example, distinctive feature processing and configural processing. To make clear the roll of these strategies, this experiment compared distinctive feature judgment assumed to be isolated of facial features with distinctive expression judgment supposed to lead the configural processing of the faces. In the experiment, participants encoded some neutral targets using these tasks. At an unexpected memory test, they saw smile or neutral, upright or inverted faces. As a result, distinctive feature processing leaded higher recognition performance than configural one. Another result showed facial inconsistency at the encoding and retrieval phase influenced recognition memory. But upright and inverted targets at retrieval had same recognition performance. Finally, interaction between orientation factor and facial expression consistency factor was found.

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract