This study aimed to identify semantic satiation occurring at the semantic representation level. Participants in the present study were presented with three words. The first word was repeated according to the repetition conditions (3 times or 30 times). The other two words were displayed as a double lexical decision task. This stimulus pair contained one homograph word. The semantic relation was manipulated by three words, and the semantic relation conditions were constructed as three types: in a concordant condition, the relation of three words was consistent (e.g., Sora - Kumo - Kaminari); in a discordant condition, the relation of the prime word to the ambiguity word differed from the relation of the ambiguity word to the other lexical decision word (e.g., Mushi - Kumo - Kaminari); and in the neutral condition, the prime word had no connection with the two following words (e.g., xxx - Kumo - Kaminari). The results indicated that the semantic relation effect in 3 repetitions was significant. The reaction time in the concordant condition was faster compared with in the neutral condition, while it was slower in the discordant condition. With 30 repetitions, the semantic relation condition had no significant effect, showing the semantic relation effect decreased as a function of repetition.

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One of the major industries supporting Japan is the overseas and domestic shipping business, and the safety of a logistics system and protection of global environment have been developed through the excellence and skills of the Japanese seafarers who work in the shipping business. However, the number of skillful seafarers, who were born during the Japanese baby boom, has decreased due to retirement. Therefore, maintaining the previous safety of the logistics system and environmental protection is becoming difficult. In order for the young seafarer to become skillful, it was previously thought that a period of about ten years is required. However, nowadays, it seems that a skillful seafarer's training is achieved more swiftly. The traditional method of education or training has limitations under this present situation. The aim of this study is to discover new training techniques for obtaining an effective and practical result within the given limited period of time. A group discussion learning method is considered for acquiring the new educational technique in the training ships. Some experiments for investigating the effect of this technique, compared with the conventional technique, are performed, and the validity of a group discussion learning method is shown from these results.

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In recent years, there have been more arguments on the importance of educating children not only in Japanese but also in their mother language from different viewpoints and backgrounds because the number of children who have foreign roots has rapidly increased in Japan. Some argue that it is important to involve parents as a support system for learning in their mother language in public schools but it is not necessarily easy due to a lack of understanding of Japanese education by parents, "the wall standing between school and parents", etc. This research, basing on hypothesis that to remove "the wall", setting classes for learning in their mother language in public schools is effective and involving parents in those classes encourages parents to participate in school education and children to study their language and their culture as well, considered how parents were involved in schools and classes for learning in their mother language and what influence did that had on learning attitude and motivation of children by actual setting of those classes from the data gained there. As a result, the following are revealed: 1) The significance of setting classes for learning in their mother language to parents: This research also confirmed that it is difficult to involve Vietnamese parents. 2) The relationship between children's motivation toward learning mother language and culture and involvement of parents: Children who had shown positive learning attitude in classes for learning in their mother language in the lower grades began to show defiant attitude in the fourth grade, which is said to be the time developmental stage changes greatly. It was considered that bringing in lion dance affected the improvement of motivation to take part in classes for learning in their mother language significantly in the time of overcoming this great change in developmental stage after the fourth grade. This enhanced willingness toward lion dance was thought to be the result of children themselves having recognized and been aware that their Vietnamese parents were involved in this lion dance. This positive attitude toward lion dance study also had a good effect on the motivation in the entire activity of classes for learning in their mother language and seemed to lead children to find the significance of those classes, "learning for their family".

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Many of you might have experienced pressing an "open" button when you actually wanted to "close" elevator doors. Earlier studies have focused on design of pictograms as the main factor causing errors of pressing buttons in elevators. However, in addition to the design of pictograms, cognitive factors, such as dual task and eye movement, may also cause people to make errors and delay their reaction times (RTs). This study investigated how these cognitive factors affect error rates and RTs of pressing buttons in elevators. Two pictograms of buttons (open and close) were presented on a screen following a preceding instruction (open or close). Participants were required to press the corresponding key as quickly and accurately as possible. Open and close signs were illustrated by three pairs of different pictograms and a pair of words. Stimuli were randomly presented on periphery (with-eye-movement condition) or center (without-eye-movement condition) of the screen. The experiment was divided into two blocks assigned for separate conditions (dual task or single task). Under the dual task condition, participants were instructed to perform the main task simultaneously with a backward counting task. Our results showed that the effect sizes of the dual task and the eye movement on error rates were larger than that of the design of pictograms. In addition, the effect size of the dual task on RTs was larger than that of design of pictograms. These findings suggest that more focus should be put on revealing the cognitive factors than design of pictograms to decrease errors in elevators.

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The purpose of the present study was to examine whether the Stroop color-word test is usefully for detecting cognitive decline. The correlations between the Stroop test and other type attentional test, D-CAT, were also examined. The NU-CAB as cognitive assessment battery was administrated to 1083 healthy community dwellers. The NU-CAB consisted the MMSE, sentences memory test, verbal fluency tests, digit cancellation test (D-CAT), and the Stroop test. We found a significant difference between 70's and over 80's on only RTs of the Stroop test. However we did not find strong correlation with D-CAT. These results suggest that the Stroop test have usefulness for the cognitive decline in old-old age and it reflects other aspect of the attention with D-CAT.

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The aim of this study was to examine whether future simulation in one's life (one, three, five, and ten years later) for 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s elderly groups could differ from that in undergraduate students. The results showed that (1) female had positively future thought, compared to male, especially middle-aged group; (2) consistently, the degree of the future simulation for male decreased with age, but not for female; (3) people had more positively future simulation in their life for far future (10 years later), but not for near future(1 year later), especially in undergraduate students, whereas the old-old people simulated positively both in near and far future. These results suggest that healthy old-old people had positive future image both in near and far future, but not for middle-aged group(especially male).

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Individuals can simulate and pre-experience the future events. The ability to image the plausible future is termed episodic future thinking. Particularly, it is important for us to construct the detailed scenario about future event. If we couldn't simulate it in detail, we may fail to prepare what is necessary in future or deal with the unexpected event in an appropriate manner. In present study, we investigate how the level of detail specified in episodic future thinking. We supposed two possibilities specifying level of detail in future thinking: one is the retrieval process from past episodic memory and the other is the recombination process of retrieved details into coherent representation. To investigate which process is important for specifying the level of detail, we draw on the association between level of detail and temporal distance. Level of detail of imaged future event was reflected in activation pattern of concept of future temporal distances, and retrieval of detail from episodic memory was reflected in concept of past temporal distance. The results show that details were retrieved from episodic memory when participants construct the detailed image of future events. We suggest that levels of detail in future events are specified in recombination process.

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This study examined the influence of contacts with an infant on undergraduate students' behaviours to the infant one month later. Participants were 22 female undergraduate students. They played with a boy for about 5 minutes at his 6 and 7 months of age, and asked their impressions of the contact in ten words. The frequencies of the students' behaviours (ex. patting, rocking) to the infant were significantly increased. The results of factor analysis of students' impressions indicated three factors: "perplexity", "healing", and "enjoyment". "enjoyment" increased and "prplexity" decreased at 7 months. These findings suggest students' behaviours to the infant were increased and their impressions have changed positively by contacts with the infant.

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