Perception of emotional aspects of infants' vocalizations, i. e., "comfort vs. discomfort" and "calm vs. surprised," were studied in a sample of young children in Japan (N=64). Based on perceptual experiments on adults, 10 typical voice samples were selected to represent each of 4 emotional categories. A typical picture of an infant face was prepared corresponding to each emotional category. Testing for vocal perception of "comfort vs. discomfort," for instance, only the "comfort" and "discomfort" pictures were presented. After listening to ten voice stimuli for "comfort" or "discomfort," children were asked to point to the face they thought mached the stimuli. The same procedure was followed for "calm" vs. "surprised" stimuli. Even 2-year-olds could consistently make the "comfort vs. discomfort" contrast in the same way as adults, and the proportion of matches increased with age. For the "calm vs. surprised" contrast, however, only 2-year-old children could consistently make judgments in the same way as adults, while 3-and 4 year-olds could not. These findings suggest that perception of "comfort vs. discomfort" in infants' vocalizations are easy even for 2-years-old children, while perception of the "calm vs. surprised" contrast is not fully developed in early childhood.

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The present study related empathy and role-taking ability to guilt, by inducing guilt feelings in interpersonal and rule-breaking situations. Junior and senior high school and college students (N=444) completed questionnaires to assess their guilt, empathy, and role-taking ability (social perspective-taking). The results showed that guilt feelings were the most intense in the interpersonal situation among college students, and in the rule-breaking situation among junior high school students. Correlations between empathy, role-taking ability and guilt feelings were next calculated for each gender group. For males, empathy was positively correlated with guilt feelings in the interpersonal situation, as was role-taking ability in the rule-breaking situation. For female students, empathy was positively correlated with guilt feelings in both the interpersonal and rule-breaking situations, as was role-taking ability in the rule-breaking situation. In sum, the data showed an important link between empathy and role-taking ability to guilt feelings. There was no gender difference for the interpersonal situation, but a gender effect was found for the rule-breaking situation.

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This study examined children's thinking about causal relationships between prices and factors such as supply and demand. Fourth to 6th graders (N=82) answered questions about why two kinds of goods were priced differently (e. g., berries sold in December vs. May). Children also indicated the mediating factors that related their explanations to price differences. Analysis of children's explanations revealed that older children more often used causal reasoning between prices and production factors (supply, cost, and profit) than younger ones. In addition, variability in children's reasoning and the causal links of their reasoning increased with age. Even 4th graders were able to choose some appropriate economic factors depending on the characteristics of goods.

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The purpose of this research is to examine the impact of father's involvement in childcare and mother's childcare anxiety on measures of sociability of 3 year-olds. A path model was used to examine the relationships between these variables. Due to the changes related to Japanese men's attitudes toward work and their increased time spent with families, data were collected in both 1992-1993 (Cohort 1) and 1997-1998 (Cohort 2). The data showed paternal involvement to be a significant factor affecting sociability of among 3 year-olds, for both cohorts. This suggests the direct influence of men's participation in childcare for children's social development. Furthermore, a frequent conversation between husbands and wives was found to be a significant indirect factor affecting children's sociability.

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This study examined the relationships among life stress, social exchanges with family members, and depressive symptoms in Japanese middle-aged and elderly adults. Subjects (N=2,010), comprised the first wave participants of the National Institute for Longevity Sciences-Longitudinal Study of Aging (NILS-LSA) ages 40 years and over. Hierarchical regression analysis showed first that positive exchanges with family had the effect of decreasing depressive symptoms, whereas negative exchanges had the inverse effect of increasing depressive symptoms (the former effect was greater than the latter). In addition, negative exchanges also interacted with life stress ; increased depressive symptoms were only related to negative exchanges for participants who reported medium or lower levels of stress. These findings suggest the unique characteristics of positive and negative social exchanges with life stress and psychological health.

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This research examined the conditions necessary, for children and adult with autism and mild mental retardation, to discriminate between their own and others' knowledge situations. Participants (ages 9-20, N=3) performed well on spatial perspective-taking tasks. But they performed badly on cognitive perspective-taking tasks that examined their understanding of whether or not the participants or others knew the number of playing cards. The findings included the following. First, the skill of answering about one's own knowledge was guided by using a visual prompt-fading method. Participants learned to answer correctly about their own knowledge, but no transfer was shown to knowledge of others. Second, regarding one's and others' knowledge under different knowledge conditions (visible vs. invisible, invisible vs. visible), discrimination was guided by prompting and moving the other side. Correct answers in response to the different knowledge conditions increased, but they deceased on the same knowledge conditions (visible vs. visible, invisible vs. invisible). Third, teaching was conducted for not only different knowledge conditions, but also for the same knowledge conditions. As a result, participants learned to discriminate their own vs. others' knowledge situations, and to discriminate knowledge situations between two other people. The results were discussed in terms of teaching task conditions and teaching theory-of-mind tasks.

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"Gymnastic" (keeping infants standing up or jumping on one's lap) and breast-feeding have been the subjects of research with respect to the foraging lifestyle of the San (indigenous people of Southern Africa). To better understand these two phenomena, field research was conducted among the !Xu San, who had close associations with farming herding people. Analyses 1 showed that !Xu caretakers frequently engaged fretful infants in "gymnastic" exercise with emphasizing the function to soothe them, while it was reported previously that the San believe "gymnastic" behavior promote infant motor development. Analyses 2 showed that mothers nursed their babies briefly and frequently at short intervals. It also indicated the following relevant features : (1) there was little restriction of time and space in nursing infants ; (2) during sucking, mothers gazed at infants less than usual ; (3) mothers seldom jiggled infants during pauses in sucking ; and (4) "gymnastic" behavior sometimes interrupted breast-feeding. These findings suggest that there is a cultural diversity in caretaker reactions caused by infant behaviors, and that caretaker-infant interactions gradually become organized. This study also implicates that child rearing should be interpreted in relation to cultural structures, including behavior, folk knowledge and the environment.

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