The technique of inducing mood with music, which has been used in many studies investigating the relationship between emotions and cognition, is problematic on a number of points. In particular, allowing participants to become aware in advance that they are to listen to music can affect their mood evaluations. Consequently, it is not clear whether the music actually causes a change in mood or whether the change is due to an evaluation of the music by the listener. In the present study, one group of participants was incidentally exposed to music, and their data was compared with that from one group that underwent the conventional method and from one group that evaluated the music itself. The results suggest that participants may confound their evaluations of mood with their evaluations of the music itself. Finally, we discuss some issues related to the conventional technique of inducing mood with music.

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The present study examines whether the storage of a visually-constructed image requires executive resources. Experiment 1 was conducted to determine how long a visually-constructed pattern (imaging task) could be stored without sufficient rehearsal at 1 s, 6 s, and 11 s intervals. The results indicate that memory performance was significantly disrupted at the 11 s interval. Using this interval, memory performances for the imaging task and a perceptual task (requiring the temporary storage of a perceived pattern) were compared in Experiment 2. The two memory tasks were matched in terms of their degree of difficulty. During the interval, participants performed either an articulatory suppression task that interferes with the maintenance of verbally-coded materials or a random number generation (RNG) task that interferes with executive resources. The results indicate that performance for the imaging task, compared to the perceptual task, was severely disrupted by the RNG task, while performance of both memory tasks was not disrupted by the suppression task. This suggests that maintenance of a visually-constructed image, which does not involve verbal processing, is a function that requires executive resources.

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This study investigates whether it is possible to suppress positive picture memory by intentionally within the think/no-think paradigm (Anderson & Green, 2001). The employed method consisted of three phases: (1) learning, (2) think/no-think, and (3) final test. During the learning phase, participants (N=34) learned cue (neutral word)-target (positive or neutral picture) pairs. They were then given a cue-recognition test until their performance levels exceeded 80 percent. In the think/no-think phase, only the cues were repeatedly presented (either 0, 6 or 12 times). Pairs in the zero repetition condition were taken as a baseline in evaluating memory facilitation and memory suppression. With respect to red cues, participants were required to remember the paired targets, while for green cues they were to suppress the paired targets. During the final test phase, the participants were tested with a cue-recall test. The results indicate that the participants recalled fewer suppressed targets than the baseline targets for both positive and neutral pictures. This suggests that memory suppression of pictures is robust and that subjective experience during suppression varies according to emotional valence.

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Synesthetic expressions combine words that belong to different sensory modalities. It is known that the understanding of synesthetic expressions is influenced by how the modalities are combined. However, expressions that use onomatopoeic words have not been examined to date, even though onomatopoeic words are synesthetic words. The present study examines comprehensible combinations of sensory modalities within synesthetic expressions that employ onomatopoeic words. In Experiment 1, the participants were asked to evaluate the sensory relevances of 47 onomatopoeic words. The results indicate that 39 of the onomatopoeic words are related to one of the five modalities (vision, hearing, touch, taste, and olfaction). In Experiment 2, the participants were asked to evaluate the degree to which 195 synesthetic expressions were comprehensible. The results indicate that, in principle, modification of high-modal words by lower-modal words can be understood. In addition, hearing was found to be independent of the other modalities within the structure of modification.

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This study investigates the role of phonological representations during the reading of Japanese sentences. We focus on the retention process for word order and particles, which is critical for the construction of propositional representations for Japanese sentences. The participants were asked to read sentences silently and to perform actor/modifier judgment and recognition tasks, which both require the retention of the sentence word order. Experiment 1 indicates that articulatory suppression while reading a sentence impairs performance for the actor judgment task for OSV sentences and modifier judgment task for all sentences. For the recognition task, articulatory suppression also impaired the participants' ability to detect errors in a recognition sentence where particles were replaced from their original positions. In contrast, Experiment 2 indicates that concurrent tapping does not impair task performance. These results indicate that the phonological representations created during silent reading are used to retain the “noun-particle” and “adjective (adjective verb)-noun” word orders within the Japanese sentence that establishes a base for the construction of propositional representations.

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Although most previous studies assume that the anchoring effect is elicited through numerical processes, a recently proposed semantic model (Mussweiler & Strack, 1999a) assumes that it occurs due to specific pieces of knowledge activated by the anchor. To test that model, this study examines the magnitude of the anchoring effect when participants have little knowledge about the inferential target. They estimated the height of a well-known personality (i.e., Tokugawa Ieyasu) or a little-known personality (i.e., Tokugawa Ietsuna) after an anchor was presented. The semantic model predicts that the anchoring effect should be smaller for the little-known personality. However, the prediction was not confirmed in this study. An analysis in terms of a skew index (Epley & Gilovich, 2006) suggests that the anchoring effect is produced by numerical processes when the participants have little knowledge about the inferential target.

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A sketch of Kusho (finger writing in space) behavior and its historical and conceptual backgrounds were briefly introduced.

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