An objective evaluation of the deployment of attentional resources to a visual task is required to develop better products and services. Here I introduce the task-irrelevant probe technique, which can evaluate the deployment of attentional resources to a visual task. In this technique, auditory probes are presented during a visual task and participants are asked to ignore them. The amplitudes of auditory evoked potentials elicited by the probes should decrease when participants deployed greater attentional resources to the visual task, because residual attentional resources that can be deployed to auditory probes would be reduced. A series of our experimental studies demonstrated that 1) deployment of attentional resources caused by pleasure can be evaluated independently from that caused by task difficulty, 2) the temporal resolution can be improved by using a multiple-stimulus paradigm, and 3) more detailed evaluation of the deployment of attentional resources is available by combining other physiological indices. The task-irrelevant probe technique is useful for both basic and applied studies.

Interoception is referred to as the bidirectional signal processing between the brain and the internal organs that generates a representation of the internal state of an organism. The purpose of this article is to outline the methodological issues in interoception research and recent progress of the study on the effect of interoceptive signals on cognitive and affective processes. Especially, this article introduces recent studies showing that the cardiac interoceptive signals modulated decision-making. Finally, future directions of interoceptive research from the view of methodology were discussed.

The pupil modulates the amount of light entering the eye. Furthermore, cognitive processes, such as perception, memory, emotion, and attention, influence pupil size. Therefore, pupil changes have attracted attention as an indicator of cognitive function. However, limited descriptions of pupil measurement exist, making it difficult to incorporate pupil measurement into research. This article outlines the methodology of pupil measurement, including the selection of pupil measurement devices, experimental stimuli, experimental design, and pupil analysis methods. The author hopes that this article will be useful for pupil research in various fields.

This article is concerned about those records which are historically related with foundation of the Japanese Psychonomic Society. The authors are concerned with the Colloquium on Perception, the Young Perceptionists’ Seminar (YPS) and the Chiba Seminar on Perception (CSP) as its forerunners. Attention is paid on the name of society. The Japanese Psychonomic Society has its uniqueness in that it encompasses a broad spectrum of experimental psychology, viewing perception, emotion, learning, behavior, etc. as an inseparable unity within Psychonomic science. In the paper, it also mentioned the impact of paradigm shifts that occurred in the 20^th century and the subdivision of specific fields on the establishment of academic societies.