Feedback signals promote changes in behavior that may help to avoid negative out-
comes. Feedback evaluation primarily calculates the difference between expected out-
comes and the actual outcomes presented by feedback. Gambling tasks are used to in-
vestigate the processing of feedback evaluation. Studies have shown that event-related
brain potentials (ERPs) reflect a feedback signal (e.g. feedback negativity, FN), such
as monetary gain or loss, and its magnitude of reward. While feedback information can
deliver multiple results (e.g. hits and misses) immediately for choices with multiple se-
lections (e.g. bets on red/black and odd/even in roulette), it remains unclear whether
ERPs reflect the number of hits/misses indicated in the feedback. This ERP study
focused on evaluating the number of misses indicated by feedback for risky choices.
Electroencephalograms were measured while participants performed the task. In each
trial, two geometric stimuli (square or triangle, colored blue or red) were presented in
series with an interval between. During the first stimulus presentation, participants
bet on differences of color and shape between the presented and subsequent stimulus.
The second stimulus provided feedback on the result. Participants won for two hits
and lost the bet if they had single or double miss. ERP results showed that feedback
from double miss evoked a larger P3 on the front central site than feedback from single
miss, regardless of the amount lost. This indicates that the combination of FN and
P3 reflects processing of the number of misses in multiple selections in a single trial
notified by feedback.

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This study examined the relationship between the amount of legal knowledge, knowl-
edge of the lay judge system, cognitive factors (i.e., perceived risk to one’s life, perceived
cost to act as a saiban-in “lay judge,” perceived benefit to act as a saiban-in), emotions
(anxiety, stress, and anticipated regret), and behaviors (i.e., intentions and requests to
act as a saiban-in) in the lay judge system. First, we surveyed a sample of 307 citizens
in 2007 and 700 citizens in 2012, and compared the decision-making processes in these
two years using structural equation modeling. The results indicated that the effect of
perceived benefit to act as a saiban-in on intentions was weaker in 2012 than 2007.
In contrast, the effect of perceived cost was stronger in 2012 than in 2007. This may
explain why the intention to act as a saiban-in was low in 2012, despite the greater
knowledge of saiban-in processes in 2012 than in 2007. Second, the groups in 2012 were
(1) males with a decision-making style defined by low responsibility scores, (2) males
with high responsibility scores, (3) females with low scores, and (4) females with high
scores. We examined the decision-making processes among the groups. For all groups,
there was a cognitive process that perceived risk to one’s life affected intentions to act
as a saiban-in, mediated by the perceived cost to act as a saiban-in. However, emo-
tional process differed among groups. Therefore, in order to increase intentions to act
a saiban-in, it is necessary to provide information that draws on individual differences
(e.g., gender, decision-making style), particularly including emotional content.

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,

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It is not difficult for residents, for the most cases, to know the knowledge of disaster
prevention, while it is quite difficult for them to take appropriate evacuation behavior.
For example, it is easy to know why flooded underpasses should not be gone through by
cars. It is just because cars would be submerged and got stuck on the way. However,
people sometimes fail to apply such knowledge to take an appropriate action, due to
the so-called knowledge-to-action gap. In the present study, a preliminary investiga-
tion and two experiments were conducted. The purpose of the investigation is to clarify
the kinds of unsafe evacuation behavior with reference to newspaper articles on flood
disaster over the past 15 years. The two experiments are to examine if the knowledge-to-
action gap can be confirmed by means of paper-and-pencil tests consisting of knowledge
and intention tasks. Preliminary investigation revealed ten kinds of unsafe evacuation
behaviors in flood disaster. Experiments 1 and 2 indicated that participants take unsafe
evacuation behaviors even though they have appropriate knowledge. In addition, the
experiment 2 indicated that they perceived danger in unsafe evacuation behaviors and
flood disaster situation.These results demonstrate an aspect of unsafe evacuation be-
havior, and the importance of disaster prevention education, which has to be carefully
designed to bridge the gap between knowledge and action for disaster prevention.

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This paper examines two-stage multi-attribute decision strategies in different condi-
tions where numbers of alternatives, and attributes are varied. A Monte-Carlo com-
puter simulation using the concept of elementary information processes identified de-
cision strategies that approximate the accuracy of normative procedures while saving
cognitive effort in the two-stage decision making process. The elementary strategies
examined in the simulation were nine decision strategies: lexicographic, lexicographic
semi-order, elimination by aspect, conjunctive, disjunctive, weighted additive, equally
weighted additive, additive difference, and majority of confirming dimensions strategies.
Elementary information process and relative accuracy were computed for all combina-
tion of two decision strategies for two-phased decision making process. The result of
the computer simulation suggested that comparatively effortless and accurate heuristic
was the two-phased strategy that used lexicographic strategy to eliminate until a few
alternatives in the first stage and used weighted additive strategy in the second stage.
Lastly, theoretical and practical implications of this study were discussed.

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The purpose of this research is to experimentally clarify the influence both of mar-
ket factors related to market conditions and of investors’ individual factors related to
cognitive tendency on their investment behavior; for this purpose, we conducted an ex-
periment using an experimental market in which participants were asked to buy and sell
stocks whose prices were controlled. Specifically, we analyzed generalized linear mod-
els where each of three behavioral indicators related to investment (the ratio of trend
following trading, the extent to which a participant took risks, and disposition effect)
was a response variable and both market factors (market trend and volatility) and in-
vestors’ individual factors (risk attitude and degree of proficiency) were explanatory
variables, so that we could identify whether or not the explanatory variables explained
each response variable. Five professional traders and 11 personal investors participated
in this experiment. As a result, the following three things were clarified: First, it was
affected not by market factors but by their risk attitude whether they followed market
trends or not; second, the extent to which they took risks was affected both by market
factors and by their degrees of proficiency; finally, disposition effect was affected only
by degree of proficiency, which meant that professional traders could avoid disposition
effect.

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The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of the numeracy and educational
levels on biases in five decision tasks: denominator neglect, risk-format effect in breast
cancer screening risk communication, misunderstanding of correlation, framing effect,
and conjunction fallacy. An internet survey was conducted with Japanese citizens in
metropolitan areas (n = 960) whose numeracy scores were previously measured by the
Japanese version of Lipkus et al.’s (2001) numeracy scale, aged from their 20s to their
60s with high and low educational levels. Data were analyzed based on 3 criteria of
numeracy levels: median split (10), split according to the previous study’s criterion
(9), and top-quartile (11) vs. bottom-quartile (7 and under). In the results of analysis
by median split, there were no significant differences except the denominator neglect.
There existed significant differences in educational levels across the three tasks. In the
results by the other criteria, there were significant differences in the tasks of conjunction
fallacy and framing effect, but those biases were rather stronger in the high-numeracy
group. The influence of the ceiling effect measuring numeracy in Japanese citizens
compared to the previous studies’ participants was discussed, as were the kinds of tasks
and the difference of response by numeracy.

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This study investigated the effect of moral foundation and feeling of disgust toward a
criminal case on non-professional legal decisions. Three hundred and sixty participants
were asked to read a fictional story about a murder attempt case and rated a possi-
bility that a defendant, who had denied all charges against the case, would be judged
as guilty. Participants were also rated a degree of regrets about their decision if the
truth would be either guilty or not guilty. The degree of physical injury of a victim was
varied in accordance with three conditions (i.e., minor, heavy, and permanent damage).
The analysis revealed that participants who put much value on not harming others felt
disgust toward the criminal case, and that resulted in higher ratings of possibility that
the defendant would be judged as guilty. In addition to that, as the degree of physi-
cal injury of the victim got severer, the ratings of the possibility also got higher, and
participants felt less regrets of their decision even if the defendant was actually not
a real perpetrator and thus they made Type II error. We discussed characteristics of
non-professional legal decisions from both theoretical and practical perspectives.

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Consumers often express different preferences for beverages in sensory test settings
compared with those in real-life settings. This study investigates the effects of tasting
context on consumer tasting and evaluation of beverages. Three groups of respondents
participated in a blind taste test of a consumer beverage in different settings and then
evaluated the pleasantness of the beverage. Those who tasted in a real-life setting
tended to report greater pleasantness for the sample than those who tasted in a test
setting where they were asked to rate multiple sensory characteristics of the sample.
Those who tasted in a test setting in which they were not asked to rate these char-
acteristics tended to give the sampled beverage moderate ratings that ranked between
those given by the other two groups. Several potential explanations for the effects of
tasting context are discussed.

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Knobe (2003) demonstrated that people’s intentionality judgments of side-effects de-
pend on whether the consequence is positive or negative. This indicates that people’s
judgments of intentionality of action depend not only on their perception of the inten-
tion of the actor but also on the results of the action. The current study examines the
Knobe effect in terms of causal structure and probability. To address these issues, this
study employed almost the same experimental procedure as Knobe’s original experi-
ment (2003). We also added a condition where participants were required to consider
the intentionality of an action whose side effect also affected the actor. In addition,
this condition required intentionality and probability judgments about outcomes. The
results demonstrated that both causal structure and probability play an important role
in the Knobe effect.

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Processing fluency influences judgment as metacognitive cue. Laham, Koval, & Al-
ter (2012) demonstrated name-pronunciation effect whereby easy-to-pronounce (i.e.,
easy-to-process) names were judged more positively. In their study, however, the “pro-
nouncability” was not defined by objective criteria, which may cast doubt on the inter-
nal validity of the effect. To overcome this limitation, the present study replicated the
name-pronunciation effect by manipulating two objectively defined and well-established
pronouncability factors: within-item phonological similarity and phonotactic frequency
of the name. Phonological similarity is manipulated by making the constituent morae
share the same vowel or not. Phonotactic frequency is defined by a composite score of
mora, bi-mora and position-mora frequency. We asked participants to rate impression
of names, presenting nonwords as names of foreign person who would come to their of-
fice. The result indicated independent effects of phonological similarity and phonotactic
frequency with phonologically similar and low phonotactic frequency names being rated
negatively. The present study confirmed the internal validity of the name-pronunciation
effect in the previous study.

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When we are shown pairs of human faces and instructed to decide which face is more
preferred, our gaze is gradually biased toward the face that we eventually choose. Shi-
mojo, Simion, Shimojo, and Scheier (2003) coined this effect as the gaze cascade effect.
In this study, we investigated whether the gaze bias could be observed in various judg-
ments other than the preference judgment. In Experiment 1, we showed participants a
human face and asked them to memorize it. Then we showed them another human face
and asked to do two kinds of judgments: the preference judgment where they had to
choose which face they liked more and the dislike judgment where they had to choose
which face they disliked more. We found the gaze bias for memorized stimuli in both
judgments. In Experiment 2, we showed other participants two human faces and in-
structed to select one depending on each specific criterion for five different judgments
including the preference judgment. The gaze bias was observed in all judgments, most
robustly in the similar judgment where participants instructed to decide which face was
more similar to themselves. Contrary to findings by Shimojo et al. (2003), our results
suggest that the gaze cascade effect might be involved in the process of visual decision,
not limited in preferential formation.

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