This article mainly described about the measurement work-induced fatigue by PC (personal computer). Traditional optical flicker fusion technique was used to determine the corresponding threshold F, simultaneously T of acoustical fusion of the two short tones was used to the measurement of the work-induced fatigue by PC. F and T were changed by PC worked load. This new acoustical method was developed by writer. Relationship between subjective fatigue level of the subject groups and F or T were well fitted. However, as for this relationship, there are sometimes in case to be different by morning and afternoon. And subjective fatigue level of an eye well fit to (F-T). Fatigue of daily life received environment of work and a measurement period of time, and influence of the other various factors of fatigue, and this quantitative relationship became clear by analysis by the Hayashi's Quantification Theory. In addition, the abovementioned PC work tends to make a disease of an eye increasing every day for three hours or more.

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This study investigates interpersonal synchrony of respiration between a mover and an observer. A mover showed four kinds of expressive movements: a combination of movement qualities (tension or release) and movement directions (inward or outward). While observers watched the mover's movements, most of the observers' respiratory rhythm was not synchronized with the mover's respiratory rhythm. It was similar to the rhythm at rest. Through a detailed analysis, it is found that observers partly adjusted their respiration to the beginning phase of the mover's exhalation. Moreover, the cross correlation of respiratory rhythm between the mover and an observer was higher when the mover's body was spread and stretched out, than the one when her body was crouched and the arms and legs were inflected. The movement quality that was strained or released did not have influence on the respiratory correlation. The results of the mood test, however, show that observers felt tense and uneasy observing the strained movements and, on the other hand, they felt calm, at ease and intimate while observing the released movements.

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Patients with psychosomatic disorder or functional somatic disorder display difficulties in identifying emotional or bodily feelings. We have conducted psychophysiological stress profiling (PSP) in those patients and healthy controls, and investigated the relationship between psychophysiological index and subjective bodily feeling. Our previous studies suggested that the relationship between objective and subjective estimation in the patients would differ from that of the controls. In the present study, we performed PSP in 52 patients with psychosomatic disorder and 30 healthy controls. Changes of psychophysiological index (skin conductance level/forehead electromyogram as a index of mental/physical tension) in pre-/in-/post-stress and subjective feeling (mental and physical tension) were investigated. Psychophysiological index did not significantly differ between the patient and the control group, but subjective bodily feeling differed between two groups. Patients had the same physiological tension as controls, but felt higher tension than the controls. Especially in physical tension feeling, patients showed less variant pattern. Chronic high tension makes it difficult to feel relax sensation, which would lead patients to conditions of "alexisomia". Discussions about the process toward awareness of bodily feeling and biofeedback were made through a case of psychosomatic temporomandibular disorder. The case, at the beginning, showed high bodily tension, had a tendency toward intellectualization rather than somatic consciousness, and showed reduced awareness of bodily feelings. Through the approaches including biofeedback, the functional linkage between intellection and sensory recovered and the whole awareness of bodily feeling was heightened. Ikemi, et al. stated availability of biofeedback for encouraging the awareness of bodily feeling. Biofeedback adapts subjective bodily feeling to objective state of body. Through such process, functional dissociation among the cerebral level for cognition, the limbic level for emotion, and brainstem level for bodily feeling would resolve. The awareness of bodily feeling leads awareness of emotional feeling, and also leads awareness of mind-body interaction.

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Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from subjects with higher and lower competitiveness performing a reaction time task which required them to compete with visible opponent or with invisible one, to investigate the characteristics of processing of results in competitive situation. The effects of competitiveness and visibility of opponent on P300 and N400 were determined, as P300 is an useful index for allocation of attention and N400 is regarded to reflect semantic processing. The P300 amplitudes of winning trials were larger than those of losing trials, reflecting more attention to winning, and the N400 amplitudes of losing trials were larger than those of winning trials, because of incongruity of the aim and the result of competition. The P300 amplitudes of the higher competitive subjects were smaller than those of the lower competitive subjects, especially when competing with visible opponent. The higher competitive subjects had larger amplitudes of P300 when competing with invisible opponent than with visible one, whereas, there was no difference between P300 amplitudes of lower competitive subjects with visible opponent and with invisible one. These indicated that higher competitive person might be not only dependent on the presentation of result, but also attempt to estimate the result using the other information, for example, the comparison of their performances with their opponents' ones. The N400 amplitudes of the higher competitive subjects were more enhanced than those of the lower competitive subjects. This indicated that the higher competitive subjects might execute feedback processing to integrate their performances and the results, more than lower competitive subjects. These findings suggested that people would be generally engaged in competition desiring to win, therefore, and execute additional information processing to improve next performance, and that higher competitive person would weight the result of competition and execute active processing continuously, compared to lower competitive person.

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There are patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) or Essential tremor disease (ET), whose hands and/or feet tremble involuntarily. Because they cannot control their tremors daily life, including routine activities such as writing a letter or pouring tea into a cup, is difficult. We chose biofeedback as a method of controlling these tremor diseases and we constructed a tremor measurement system with 3-axis accelerometers, a digitizing tablet and a laptop to collect basic data. Using this system, we investigated whether the patient's movements during writing or drawing were influenced by the presence of handwriting. The subjects were 10 PD patients (PD group) and 8 ET patients (ET group). Beforehand, all patients were classified according to degree of tremor by a doctor. All patients sat on a chair and traced an Archimedes spiral on a digitizing tablet. We instructed the subjects to trace the spiral correctly. An accelerometer was attached to the index finger on each subject's writing hand. The subjects drew the spiral under the following two conditions: with handwriting and without it. In this study, we have found a positive correlation between the amplitude of the acceleration of drawing and the degree of the tremor. In both the ET group and PD group, the amplitude of the acceleration of drawing was significantly increased by the presence of the handwriting. Also, in the PD group, a disturbance in the figure was significantly increased by the presence of the handwriting. This result suggests that the index of the acceleration is effective in a biofeedback training system for patients with tremor disease.

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Meta-analytic literature reviews of biofeedback therapy and relaxation had consistently identified clinically significant reductions in migraine. But these therapeutic effects for the psychological and sociological factors in the patients with migraine were unknown. We tried combination of thermal and electromyogram feedback and relaxation for a case of migraine without aura. We examined not only biological factors but also psycho-social factors by ecological momentary assessment (EMA). Biofeedback therapy produced larger reductions in headache activity, nausea, analgesic medication use, stress, depression, anxiety, irritability, headache-related disability. These effects of biofeedback and relaxation continued to improve at a 10 weeks follow-up in the biological and psychosocial factors.

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The first purpose of the present investigation was to examine the effect of mirror drawing task (MDT) on the partial pressure of end-tidal carbon dioxide (PetCO_2) and respiration rate (RR). The second was to examine effects of increased task difficulty on PetCO_2 and RR during MDT. 10 healthy undergraduates volunteered for this study. After the 4 minute rest period, they completed two conditions (the easy condition and the difficult condition) followed by the post-task period. The difficulty was manipulated by narrowing the width of the track. MDT in the easy condition induced a significant increase in RR and did not affect PetCO_2. There were no significant differences in PetCO_2 and RR between two conditions. These results implied that MDT may itself induce a significant elevation in RR but not affect PetCO_2. The results also suggested that these effects were independent of task difficulty.

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