Visual signs, such as business signage, are often a stereotypical color related to the sign’s message. For example, a sign for a meat store might be lettered in red. In our study, we examined whether such coloring for visual signs facilitated their detection by comparing visual search performance in typical and atypical color conditions. The results suggest that target words in atypical colors slowed participants’ search (in Exp. 1, 2, and 3), while target words in typical colors facilitated participants’ search (in Exp. 3), even though word color was not the critical feature for target detection. Our results suggest that the color of visual signs could affect visual searches for the signs by automatically forming an attentional set for typical colors.

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of different levels of arousal of positive emotion (joy or relaxation relaxation) on inhibiting stress. Moreover, the gender difference of this effect was examined. A three-minute film was presented to participants () as priming to arouse positive emotion (high/low); afterwards, they were asked to finish a speech task in front of a video camera for 2 minutes. Stress as a dependent variable was measured by subjective emotional rating and heart rate. Participants () in whom emotion was not induced by the film were excluded from the analysis. The results indicated that those with high arousal of positive emotion had a lower heart rate during the speech task than those with low arousal of positive emotion. High arousal of positive emotion was associated with a higher stress inhibitory effect. Furthermore, a gender difference was found; women showed a higher heart rate than men during the speech task. In addition, women appeared to feel stress more readily than men during the speech task.

Relationships among the speech rate, impressions regarding a speaker’s personality-traits, speech quality and impressions regarding vocational aptitude were investigated during job interviews. The recorded voices of a script read by three college students were manipulated and different versions of the script, with faster, or slower speech rates, were developed. University student participants and staff () listened to the recorded speeches and rated their impressions regarding personality-traits, speech quality and vocational aptitude of speakers. Results indicated that speakers with a moderate speech rate (ca. ) obtained the highest scores for extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness and clarity of speech. Moreover, evaluations of vocational aptitude were positively influenced by conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness, clarity of speech and subjective speed of utterances. Extraversion influenced only impressions regarding the suitability for sales jobs. Friendliness of the speaker influenced the willingness to collaborate, whereas impressions of high job performance were not related to the willingness to collaborate. Application of these findings to speech training for job interviews is discussed.

We developed a questionnaire with 19 questions on peer relationships in junior high school. These questions were created to depict the characteristic peer relationships of students who have failed to adjust to school life. Through repeated factor analyses, we found that the questionnaire consisted of four factors. We ascertained that the internal consistency reliability was almost acceptable (Cronbach’s , 0.669 to 0.774). The questionnaire results were significantly correlated with those from another measure assessing peer friendship in junior high school students, suggesting that criterion-related validity was established. The four factors obtained in the current study were very different from those found in other published studies. As the questionnaire may be useful for psychological assessments of students who struggle to adjust to school life, investigating this questionnaire’s test-retest reliability and construct validity is necessary.

Three groups of undergraduates were asked to solve two mathematical problems, using an experimental procedure of a typical learned helplessness paradigm. Before tasks, the students in the mastery-goal group () and in the performance-goal group () were instructed about their achievement goals. For the mastery-goal group, they were told that as they made efforts to solve the problem, they would increase their ability in math; for the performance-goal group, they were told that although this test would not increase their math ability, they try to get a better score than anyone else. The first preliminary task was not solvable for the mastery-goal and performance-goal groups but solvable for the control group (), while the second test task was solvable for all groups. Before and after the first task, the students were asked to complete assessments about negative and positive emotions. An ANOVA indicated that the performance-goal group performed the second task significantly worse than the control group. But there were no significant effects between the mastery-goal and performance-goal groups. The results indicate that this study was not well-designed for examining the effect of achievement goals.