Fire is closely associated with human life. The purpose of this study was to use a probe stimulus/dual task methodology to investigate the psychophysiological effects of the fireplace. Participants made auditory discriminations during an “odd-ball task”, while also looking at a lit fireplace. ERPs, button press performance, alpha power and questionnaire responses were measured or assessed. The amplitudes of the N2 components elicited by target and deviant stimuli were significantly decreased during later sessions. In contrast, there were no P3 component and reaction time to the target differences. Furthermore, alpha power increased through the sessions. Attention during the early stages of a trial was transfixed by the fireplace, as reflected in decreased N2 amplitudes. In addition, watching the fireplace appears to have induced relaxation, as indexed by increased alpha power. Real fire as a natural element may have some tranquil effects.

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To examine how the Wenchuan earthquake influenced public concern about the academic careers of students from earthquake-affected areas, we conducted three rounds of a survey at 1, 6, and 11 months after the disaster in devastated and non-devastated areas. We asked residents to estimate how many high school students out of 100 in the areas devastated by the Wenchuan earthquake would be admitted to college in the next year. The results indicated that the longer time from the disaster, the more concerned the public (both inside and outside the devastated areas) was about the students’ academic careers. We dubbed this finding a “Psychological Typhoon Eye” effect. The underlying mechanisms and implications are discussed.

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This study was conducted to investigate whether perceptual disappearance of visual objects occurs during driving situations and if so, to identify factors that may limit this phenomenon. In Experiment 1, perceptual disappearance of a peripherally-presented critical stimulus lasted longer and occurred more often when participants viewed a movie of driving scenes than when they observed a static frame of the movie. These results suggest that perceptual disappearance of visual objects may occur in driving situations due to motion-induced blindness. In Experiment 2, we investigated whether eye movements could suppress this disappearance in simulated driving situations. Participants observed the movie of driving scenes with or without saccades. Perceptual disappearance of the critical stimulus lasted for shorter periods and occurred less often with saccades than without them. These data indicate that eye movements may be an important factor in limiting perceptual disappearance of visual objects in driving situations.

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This paper discusses the effect of usage experiences on the evaluation of waiting time when using ICT. In discussing waiting time, we assume an internal cognitive model based on the hypothesis that the evaluation of waiting is determined by comparing perceived waiting time with expected waiting time. The effect of usage frequencies on expected waiting time is also incorporated. To investigate this model, we conducted two experiments to evaluate waiting time during e-mail transmission with and without an attachment. Both results support our hypothesis and showed that the subjective evaluation scores were maximized at a particular frequency of usage. The results are useful for implementing concrete measures in system design and also for providing a general strategy for waiting time issues in the real world. The results also reveal the need to consider users’ frequency of usage in service design.

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Our society is called on to provide more advanced information retrieval systems due to explosive growth of information. This research investigated how a searching support system that presents keywords as clues influencing user search activities. Twelve participants searched for particular information using the support system, with thinking-aloud method in an experiment. Results showed that the support system facilitate the use of new keywords. However, different results appeared depending on users’ occupations; researchers of information sciences, or professional searchers of a specific domain. Analyzed data indicated that there were different effects of the searching support system on automatic and conscious processing depending on expertise area of the participants, implying fitting into the dual-process models.

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