The relation between prefrontal cortex and postural functions was examined in relation to developmental changes among healthy middle and upper-middle aged people were examined. The 365 participants of four age groups (40's, 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's; 226 women and 139 men) were given digit cancellation test (D-CAT) for prefrontal cortex related function assessment and the stabilometer measurements for postural functions. The results showed that developmental changes in performances for postural and prefrontal cortex related cognitive function were not parallel. Based upon these findings, characteristics of the developmental changes of cerebro-cerebellar systems in middle and upper-middle aged people were discussed.

View full abstract

Eyewitness often fails to remember details about the perpetrator of a crime. That is because the witness primarily focuses on the weapon during the encounter. This phenomenon is known as the weapon focus effect. On the basis of the process of the weapon focus effect, there may be a tendency of individuals to attend to a weapon. The present experiment was designed to investigate whether weapons attract more attention than do neutral objects. We assessed participants' visual attention to photographs of weapons and neutral objects presented under identical conditions. We first presented photographs of objects such as knives (i.e., weapons) and cell phones (i.e., neutral objects) in turn. Participants had to click a mouse button as soon as each photograph appeared. We predicted that RTs to the weapon stimuli would be shorter than would those to neutral objects. It was revealed that participants' RTs to weapons were shorter than to other objects. These results are in line with our prediction, and suggesting that individuals have system to pay faster attention to weapons. The present study implies that a weapon influence eyewitness' attention, leading to the weapon focus effect.

View full abstract

This study examined the citizen judge's sentencing decisions from "asymmetric perceptions" to crime victim's statements. "Asymmetric perceptions" is the phenomenon that people see others as more influenced by particular strong messages than themselves. In this study, the determination factors and the consequence of asymmetric perceptions composed of impact-perceptions to others and self were examined. Some 100 undergraduates were subjected to a description about citizen judge system and victim participant system which were introduced in recent years in Japanese criminal trial and they answered their own attitude for or against victim participant system. After reading a fictional accidental mortality case and its trial scenario, they made answer impacts to other judges and themselves by crime victim's statements presented in the scenario. In the instruction, whether other judges were legally-professional or not was manipulated (lay person vs. law school students). Finally, participants made sentencing decisions to the defendant pleaded guilty. ANOVA revealed that the mock judges showed asymmetric perceptions in respect to crime victim's statements under the "lay person" condition. As predicted, when other judges were law school students, participants considered the victim's statements had smaller impact to other judges. In this condition, an asymmetric perception disappeared. Furthermore, as an earlier study showed, participants who oppose victim participant system see the victim's statements as having smaller impact on themselves, and imposed a more lenient punishment to the defendant. The results are suggestive that the findings of asymmetric perceptions in medias impact-study are applicable to judiciary decision-study.

View full abstract

It is well-known about the abnormalities of the abilities to remember and preserve information in the individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Many previous studies have focused on the difference by a final memory performance between individuals with ASD and Typical Development (TD). Then, the aim of this study was to examine the learning process until learning in the individuals with ASD, compared to TD. The participants of ASD and TD groups studied all 24 words pairs. Each word pair was tested until they could reach a criterion, two consecutive testing sessions. Learning processes were examined with four measures of (1) the total number of trials and (2) the number of trials for each pair until two consecutive correct responses, (3) the performance of two consecutive correct responses during study trials and (4) the response time for each word during study trials. Finally, at 30 minute later. they were asked to recall each corresponding word for 8 cues randomly selected from 24 pairs. The results showed that the number of trials until learning (the measurement of (1) and (2)) in ASD group were much than that in TD, whereas, in ASD group, the performance of two consecutive correct responses during studying trials (the measurement of (3)) and final performance after 30 minutes on corresponding words to 8 cues was prominently less than that in TD group. These results are discussed in terms of the memory dysfunction related to adaptation in ASD.

View full abstract

JDF (Japan Disability Forum) is an organization that major disability related organizations across the country can join. ADF (Aichi Disability Forum) is an organization which is the Aichi version of JDF. This ADF is observed in this research. Two NPOs of ADF affiliation are taken up as an example for research. One is the K meeting which is a union of family associations of mentally handicapped people. Another is the N meeting which is a union of patients associations of people with incurable diseases. In both cases, so as to form a single NPO, multiple organizations are united. In this study, the crisis within the organization resulting in the growth process of the organization of principals is focused on. Specifically, there are the problems of human relations that occur between members. When a human being constituting an organization is going to get over a problem in a severe environment, what kind of crisis produces it in human relations inside the organization? The leader of the organization takes what kind of measures against the crisis, and how does the result turn out? The dynamisms of these crises are arranged by an analysis framework on the basis of the organization properties of welfare and movement. From the analysis results, it was found that the difference is caused by the characteristic heterogeneity and homogeneity of infrastructure building blocks. In conclusion of this study, it is necessary to review the "sense of purpose, activity base, and measures action" in order to overcome the crisis.

View full abstract

The purpose of this research was to examine the relationship between the postural sway rate (ENV. Area) and higher brain function (level of phonological awareness, level of drawing ability, and intellectual level) in normal children under school age. We also tried to examine the possibility of dyslexia screening using ENV. The test items were used 1) measurement of physical fitness,2) height and weight, 3) postural sway, 4) a phonological test, 5) a drawing test and 6) an intelligence test in 291 children at a kindergarten. Correlation analyses for age and other test items were related to all them. The phonological awareness was related to ENV. Two groups (a higher ENV and a lower ENV) were compared with a t-test and the results showed a significant difference. The group with a higher ENV score showed higher scores in phonological awareness. From these results, the possibility of ENV measure was discussed in relation to employ as a dyslexia screening test item.

View full abstract

The objective of this study is to investigate how people's attitude toward governmental finance is influenced by information that they obtained. We conducted an experiment in which we provide different types of information to different participant groups. The information themes we provided include public investment and the governmental bonds. In some groups, the information was provided with numerical data and graphs, but in the other groups, the information was without them. The 400 participants were randomly assigned into a control group and 6 experimental groups (3 types of information themes, i.e. public investment, governmental bonds and both multiplied by 2 types of information content, i.e. with and without numerical data and graphs). As a result, we find that: 1) information with numerical data and graphs have stronger effects than that without them on attitude toward governmental finances, 2) information have stronger effects for those with higher concern or higher literacy on the policy, and 3) too much information have lesser effects than that with fewer information.

View full abstract

A psychological experiment was conducted to estimate probability weighting function whose stimuli were graphically presented. We conducted a modified experiment of Wu and Gonzalez (1996) study by using graphical representation of lotteries. The experiment consisted of 240 binary choices between two gambles. Participants were forty-four members of undergraduate students and graduate students in Waseda University. We fitted the choice data with probability weighting functions proposed by Tversky and Kahneman (1992) and Takemura (1998, 2001). We used the same procedure of Wu and Gonzalez (1996) study for estimating the parameters of both functions and computed Akaike Information Criterion (AIC), which indicated goodness of fit. The choice data confirmed previous findings of risk attitudes (Tversky and Wakker, 1995, Wu and Gonzalez, 1996) in losses. However, the choice data indicated previous findings of risk attitudes (Tversky and Wakker, 1995, Wu and Gonzalez, 1996) in only high probability in gains. Our estimates of Tversky and Kahneman's (1992) function were more linear than the estimates of Wu and Gonzalez (1996). The AIC of Tversky and Kahneman's (1992) function and Takemura's mental ruler model (1998, 2001) indicated that the Takemura's mental ruler model (1998, 2001) fitted better than the Tversky and Kahneman's (1992) model.

View full abstract

The theme of this study is a tax increase and government bonds for the recovery from the East Japan great earthquake disaster. We investigated experimentally decision making between a tax increase and government bonds. We set three experimental conditions that were different in types of information we provided, and divided 300 participants in each condition randomly. We asked participants which they preferred between tax increase and governmental bonds as a financial resource for recovery from the earthquake. As the result, we find that objective instruction about tax and governmental bonds has stronger positive effect on preference on governmental bonds than that on tax. We also find that such effects of the instruction on the preferences are stronger for those who have a custom to read newspapers and books.

View full abstract

The debate over "TSCA reform," or the amendment of Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976, has been underway in the United States since the mid-2000s, and has been gaining momentum over the last few years. REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization, and Restriction of Chemicals) regulation, enacted in the European Union in December 2006, seems to be one of the key elements that stimulated such debate. This note analyzes two prospective legislations to amend TSCA which were introduced in the 113th Congress and finds the basic direction to which TSCA reform would go. Both bills would address at least one of the regulatory gaps under the current legislation; revamping existing chemicals program of TSCA and promoting risk assessment and management of such chemicals. However, the both differ in some points, especially the burden on the industry to develop and collect chemical risk data, and requirements for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to implement risk management actions on hazardous chemicals.

View full abstract