The Japanese Journal of Psychonomic Science

Reference frames for symmetry detection were investigated in two experiments. Subjects were required to judge whether dot patterns were symmetrical or not, and then to respond by pressing one of the two buttons as correct and fast as possible. For a half of trials, a single line which indicates the direction of the axis of symmetry (of the stimulus dot pattern) was presented as the cue stimulus. The interval between the offset of the cue and the onset of the stimulus (ISI) was varied. With the short ISI (150ms), "yes"-responses were faster when the direction from the cue to the stimulus was aligned with the axis of symmetry of the stimulus dot pattern (Experiment 1). It might be due to the perceptual integration of the cue and the stimulus. With the longer ISI (1000ms), cuing produced speed-up effect (Experiment 2). This might be the result from the pre-determination of the global reference frame.

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Binocular stereopsis is more sluggish in processing the binocular disparity representing a horizontal slant in depth (compression disparity) than in processing that representing a vertical slant in depth (shear disparity). We examined this anisotropic sensitivity in binocular stereopsis by using random dot streograms representing depth surfaces slanted in different orientations. In Experiment 1 and 2, we found that the latency to depth perception depended on the combinational rate of the compression disparity and shear disparity. In Experiment 3, it was found that there was a selective adaptation which reduced the sensitivity of stereoscopic depth perception in terms of the disparity types (compression or shear). These results suggest that there are two processes with different sensitivities, one tuned to the compression disparity and the other to the shear disparity, and that the cooperation of these two processes decides the sensitivity of binocular stereopsis to a disparity representing a certain slant in depth.

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This experiment was designed to examine the reformulated theory of learned helplessness (Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978) and the diathesis-stress model of depression (Metalsky, Abramson, Seligman, Semmel, & Peterson, 1982). Thirty depressed and 30 non-depressed students were divided into three groups (contingent, noncontingent, control). In the contingent group, subjects received controllable aversive noise. In the noncontingent group, subjects received uncontrollable aversive noise. In the control group, subjects did not receive any pre-treatment. Then three groups were exposed to seventy escape trials. The results partially supported the reformulated learned helplessness model. As the theory predicts, the pretreatment significantly impaired the performance of both depressed and nondepressed. On the other hand, contrary to the theory's prediction, depressed subjects did not show any significant impairment in their performance as compared with nondepressed subjects in the contingent and noncontingent group. And in the control group depressed subjects performed better than nondepressed subjects. These findings are inconsistent with diathesis-stress model which claims that only depressed subjects show helplessness when exposed to uncontrollable events.

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The "intelligence" of sixty kinds of animals was rated by university students (N=117) using a 100-point scale. Although the results generally corresponded with the so-called "phylogenetic scale" from "amoeba" to "chimpanzee," several interesting points were observed. First, "Japanese monkey" was rated higher than "orangutan" and "gorilla." Second, "dog" and "dolphin" were rated as high as the Primates. Third, mimic birds and social insects were rated higher than other birds and insects, respectively. Finally, a kind of fish ("shark") was rated higher than a mammal ("mole").

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