Gaze cueing effects (faster responses for cued compared to uncued targets) has been attributed to an automatic shift of attention. However, gaze cueing effects can be explained by spatial conflicts between the gaze direction and the target location. In the present study, we used the gaze cueing paradigm to compare the validity of the two accounts (i.e., reflexive attentional shifts versus spatial conflicts). The cueing effects were largest at 100-ms SOA, irrespective of temporal overlap of the gaze cue and the target, the prerequisite for spatial conflicts (Experiment 1). Eye-region cues, which were used in the study supporting the spatial conflict account, reversed the gaze cueing effects when the cues were counterpredictive while typical face cues did not (Experiment 2). These results do not support the spatial conflict account and suggest the importance of the “faceness” of the cue stimuli.

This study examined whether children could infer emotions of those crying with joy. Participants (N=121, 5- to 9-year-olds) were shown a short story of a protagonist who cried with joy. Then participants were asked why the protagonist cried and which emotion the protagonist was experiencing. The results showed that 8- and 9-year-olds judged the protagonist’s emotion as happiness more than 5-year-olds. Many 5-year-olds answered, “He/She was sad because he cried,” and “I do not know why he cried.” These results suggested that at 8 to 9 years old, children may begin to understand that positive emotions can cause crying.

Handicapped people have faced discriminatory attitudes from the non-handicapped. This often deprives them of fundamental human rights and can exacerbate mental illness. Symbolic ableism is one of the key forms of discriminatory attitudes toward the handicapped, and this is regarded as a cause of disagreement with policies to support the handicapped. The propensity of symbolic ableism can be measured by the Symbolic Ableism Scale (SAS; Friedman & Awsumb, 2019), which divides symbolic ableism into four components: individualism, lack of recognition of continuing discrimination, lack of empathy for disabled people, and excessive demands. Although this scale is necessary for understanding people’s attitudes toward the handicapped, it is not available in Japanese. This study was conducted to develop a Japanese version of SAS (SAS-J) and examined its reliability and validity. The result showed that SAS-J was divided into two components (i.e., individualism and lack of recognition of current condition), which is different from the original version. We discussed possible explanations of this difference, the reliability and validity of SAS-J, and future directions of symbolic ableism.

The purpose of this study was (a) to develop the Coping Strategies for Difficult Goals Scale, which consists of five subscales: “goal level adjustment,” “goal strategy adjustment,” “goal content adjustment,” “goal disengagement,” and “goal continuation”; and (b) to examine the relationship between coping strategies and well-being when goal achievement is difficult. College students participated in this study. The results indicated that (a) the Coping Strategies for Difficult Goals Scale has adequate validity and reliability; (b) goal disengagement was negatively associated with well-being, whereas goal content adjustment was positively associated with well-being; (c) the relevant well-being aspects differ between goal level adjustment and goal strategy adjustment; and (d) while goal persistence was associated with psychological well-being, it was also associated with depression. Finally, we offered specific suggestions for future research.

The aim of this study was to investigate the reliability and validity of the Japanese version of the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function – Teacher form (BRIEF-T). This modified BRIEF-T was administered to 643 children (1st─6th grades) as a community group and 64 boys with ASD and/or ADHD as a clinical group. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the modified rating scale had a two-factor structure, corresponding to its original version. Additionally, the results indicated that the scale had high internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and concurrent validity. Furthermore, upon setting the cutoff point at mean + 1.5 SD based on the original version, 3.3─9.7% of boys and 5.7─10.1% of girls in the community group were estimated to have executive dysfunction. In the clinical group, the discriminative power was low in the 1st and 2nd grades but was appropriate in children in the 3rd to 6th grades. These findings suggest that the Japanese version of BRIEF-T is reliable and valid, and could be an effective method for the screening children suffering from executive dysfunction.

Regulatory fit theory (Higgins, 2000, 2008) proposes that people experience regulatory fit when they pursue a goal in a manner that sustains their regulatory orientation. The present study applied the regulatory fit theory and examined the relationship between regulatory focus and student engagement. We hypothesized that a fit between chronic regulatory focus (promotion or prevention focus) and motivational regulatory strategies in difficult learning situations enhances emotional, cognitive, and behavioral engagement. We conducted a survey among Japanese college students (N = 304) to test this hypothesis. The results indicated that increasing the levels of emotional and behavioral engagement were more strongly related to the frequent use of strategies to enhance self-efficacy in promotion-oriented individuals than in prevention-oriented individuals. These results partly supported the regulatory fit hypothesis. We discussed the results of this study in terms of theories of motivation.

Categories broader than the basic categories (e.g., pens) are referred to as superordinate categories (e.g., stationery). Broader categories that reflect the function of an object (e.g., things to write with) are recognized faster than superordinate categories. However, previous studies did not reveal the process of activation for functional categories. This study aimed to examine the relationship between stimulus presentation time and recognition of a functional category. We conducted a category verification task in which we manipulated the time of the stimulus presentation and the category level to clarify the process of the activation of functional category recognition. The results of the reaction time analysis confirmed the superiority of the functional category as compared to the superordinate category. However, there were no interactions between presentation time and category conditions; the time taken to process the stimuli had no effect on the activation of the category. This suggests that the activation of knowledge about man-made objects occurs in parallel, and access for broader categories does not necessarily have to occur via activation of the basic category.