The relationship between components of hostility and cardiovascular reactivity (CVR) was investigated. Participants were 20 male university students who completed the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire, which assesses four components of hostility : “Anger”, “Hostility”, “Verbal Aggression”, and “Physical Aggression”. After a rest period, participants were exposed to four experimental conditions : normal mental arithmetic task (NMA), provocative mental arithmetic task (PMA), provocative rest period (PRP), and recovery period (RP). In the provocative conditions, participants were presented with anger-provoking verbal stimuli. Results demonstrated significant increases in blood pressure, heart rate, and angry mood in PMA and PRP. Correlation coefficients between components of hostility and CVR indicated that Anger scores were related to increased systolic blood pressure in PRP, and Physical Aggression scores were related to decreased baroreceptor reflex sensitivity in PRP and RP. These results are consistent with past findings on CVR and hostility in other cultures. The results are discussed in relation to the association between hostility and coronary heart disease. (Japanese Journal of Physiological Psychology and Psychophysiology, 22 (3) : 215-224, 2004.)

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To clarify the difference in cognitive processing between Go/NoGo and Stop/NoStop tasks, participants (N=50) were presented with pictures belonging to five different categories. Under the Go/NoGo task, they were required to press a button for only people, whereas under the Stop/NoStop task, they had to inhibit responses for only cars and react to all other stimuli including people. Event-related potentials recorded in the two tasks revealed a large, biphasic positive wave (P3) : a parietally maximal subcomponent with a peak latency around 300 ms and a more broadly distributed subcomponent peaking after 400 ms. The early and late P3s, whose distributions and latencies were analogous to the two positive P-SR and P-CR waves (Falkenstein et al., 1994) were interpreted to reflect stimulus evaluation and the following motor-response processing, respectively. The correlations of early and late P3 amplitude at Fz with reaction time were observed for the NoStop stimuli, but not for the Go stimuli. These findings suggest that motor-response processing might play a more important role during the Stop/NoStop task, compared to the Go/NoGo task. (Japanese Journal of Physiological Psychology and Psychophysiology, 22 (3) : 225-236, 2004.)

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The mirror drawing (MD) task is known to increase blood pressure (BP) mainly by increasing the total peripheral resistance (TPR). We investigated the effect of a competitive situation on the cardiovascular response during an MD task. Male undergraduate students (n=32) engaged in a 4 min MD task after an 8 min practice period. Half the participants worked alone and the other half worked in a competitive group. Heart rate, baroreceptor reflex sensitivity, BP and hemodynamic parameters were measured. During the task, participants in the competitive group showed higher BP changes than those working alone. Hemodynamic parameters indicated that in the competitive group, this BP increase could be attributed to an augmentation of the cardiac output, whereas in participants working alone, the major determinant of the BP increase was increased TPR. Even in the MD task, which is known to increase TPR, competition induced an enhanced cardiac response. The implications of these results to the specific effect of competition on the cardiovascular response and the underlying effect of social evaluation are discussed. (Japanese Journal of Physiological Psychology and Psychophysiology, 22 (3) : 237-246, 2004.)

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Hemodynamic reaction patterns were examined in two groups, each consisting of 12 male students, who underwent afive-min mental arithmetic task (serial subtraction) in a partially controllable (PC) or an uncontrollable (UC) condition. The PC group was given feedback on each answer, urged to finish the task within a certain time, and exposed to an aversive stimulus every 20 s if they fell behind the required pace. In contrast, the UC group underwent no feedback, they were not urged to finish the task within a particular time, but the same aversive stimulus was used. The PC group, as expected, exhibited the cardiac-dominant reaction pattern (blood pressure elevation mainly due to an increase in cardiac output), and the UC group, unexpectedly, showed the same pattern, albeit less obviously. The implications of the present results on controllability are discussed. (Japanese Journal of Physiological Psychology and Psychophysiology, 22 (3) : 247-255, 2004.)

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Separate lesions of the hippocampus and the perirhinal cortex in rats led to distinctly different patterns of behavioral impairments in spontaneous object and place recognition tasks, in which preference to a novel object and location respectively, was tested. In both tasks, rats were tested for two delay conditions : 15 and 25 min. The lesion of the hippocampus had no effect on preference between novel and familiar objects in the object recognition task, but it impaired discrimination between objects set in novel and familiar locations in both delay conditions in the place recognition task. In contrast, the lesion of the perirhinal cortex only impaired preference in the 25-min delay condition in the object recognition task. These results suggest that the hippocampus and the perirhinal cortex are functionally differentiated from each other in recognition memory for objects and places. (Japanese Journal of Physiological Psychology and Psychophysiology, 22 (3) : 257-266, 2004.)

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It is pointed out that physiological reactions such as skin resistance response (SRR) and respiration change depend upon the respective independent mechanism in Guilty Knowledge Test (GKT). Additionally, it is noticed that of SRR evokes in the experimental GKT, respiratory apnea (RA) is reported only in the GKT for criminal investigation. In this study, the effects of the sort of questions and visual presentations are studied, taking the frequency of the largest SRR and RA in the records of 38 GKT cases which include at least one RA, and are conducted for criminal investigations. The result shows that the effects of the sort of critical questions and the method of questioning on SRR are not noticed while the increase in the frequency of RA is noticed in the questions regarding “place”, “details connected to the crime” and “actions of the offender” as compared to the questions regarding “numerals” and “details not connected to the crime”. Further, increase in the frequency of RA is noticed in the visual presentation as opposed to the auditory presentation. (Japanese Journal of Physiological Psychology and Psychophysiology, 22 (3) : 267-274, 2004.)

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Performing analyses of variance on data obtained from experimental designs with repeated measures is a common practice in psychophysiological research. However, investigators often find difficulty in selecting appropriate statistical methods. The present article describes statistically sound and easily performed procedures for conducting repeated-measures analyses of variance of psychophysiological data. Topics include comparison between univariate and multivariate analyses of variance, selection of error terms, tests for simple effects and interaction contrasts, multiple comparison, and effect size. A typical sequence of statistical tests is illustrated using a numerical example. (Japanese Journal of Physiological Psychology and Psychophysiology, 22 (3) : 275-290, 2004.)

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