To examine the effects of observed gaze on gender priming, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during performance of a gender matching task, in which face (prime) and word (target) pairs were sequentially presented. Twelve right-handed participants were required to make a judgment whether or not a gender of gazed or averted face is compatible with gender stereotype of a target word. An early negative component prior to the target was invariant between a gazed face and an averted face conditions. In the gazed face condition, an N400 attenuation was observed for a target word related to a face in terms of a gender stereotype. On the contrary, such a gender priming effect did not appear in the averted face condition. These findings suggest that semantic knowledge of gender stereotype is activated when the observed face gazes at the viewer.

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The purpose of the present study was to examine the developmental process of causal cognition in the interpersonal conflict situation and interpersonal negotiation strategy. Two studies were carried out to examine this purpose. In study 1,190 elementary school children, 2, 4, and 6 graders, participated in this experiment. They were assessed to their causal cognition in some interpersonal conflict situation. The results were as follows, (1) second grade children reasoned a cause of interpersonal conflict to either self or other, but forth grade children reasoned a cause to both self and other, (2) second and forth grade children could not reason a cause of conflict to self, but sixth grade children could reason to self. These results showed that young children use a low level interpersonal strategy, because they could not interpret the cause of interpersonal conflict. In study 2, we examined the relationship between an interpersonal goal and the causal attribution. 68 children, 3 and 5 graders, participated in this study. They were examined whether they can change their interpersonal strategy according to their interpersonal goal. The results showed that (1) children used cooperative strategy in the other's cause situation, and (2) children could use a flexible strategy according to their interpersonal goal in neutral conflict situation. These findings suggested that elementary school children could change their interpersonal strategy with their goal and their causal attribution.

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The purpose of this study was to examine the relation between preschooler's adaptive behavior (quasi- adaptive behavior) and environment. The preschool teachers were asked for describing preschooler's behavior at kindergarten. Descriptions of quasi- adaptive behavior were classified from the point view of function; behavior and places (scene) and its meaning. As a result of classification and correspondence analysis to examine relations of places and behavior, four groups were extracted. Those four groups were interpreted as "scene of stress for peer relationships (= free play scene)", "scene of stress for social situation (= separation and reunion scene)", "individual characteristic", "scene of stress for teacher's instructions (= class activity scene)" from its functional meaning. Then the difference in strength quasi- adaptive behavior group by 3 scene ("free play scene", "separation and reunion scene", "class activity scene") was analyzed. The findings indicated that behavior group of "social adaptation" was higher strength at class activity scene. The examination of the viewpoint on a basis of psychological "field" perspective was important and it has power for understanding preschooler's adaptive behavior.

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In a recent article, Killeen (2005) proposed the statistic p_rep, the probability of replicating an effect, as an alternative to traditional null-hypotheses significant tests (NHST). In this article, two experiments were conducted and their analytical results based on p_rep and traditional p values were compared: non-significant results based on p values were reinterpreted as meaningful results in light of power analysis, calculating the effect size and p_rep value. The tendency of p value analyses not to reveal non-significant results (i.e. the file drawer problem) and the improvement of decision-making methods are discussed.

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We discussed that public involvement (PI) can be regarded as strengthening direct-democratic nature in current administrative processes under parliamentary democracy and discussed the merits and demerits of PI while referring to classics in political philosophy which trace back to the era of Socrates and Plato. It was discussed that PI could contribute to education of the public and improvement in the rationality of administration by absorbing various knowledge and wisdom from the public, while it always accompanies the risks of reducing the quality of administration and leading "ochlocracy" or "the tyranny of the majority." Then, we suggested three principles of PI; (1) principle of the secure of administrative rights, (2) principle of involvement the public but avoidance of the mass, (3) principle of promoting public spirits and restraining vulgarity. Finally, based on the principles, we proposed the definition of PI anew.

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[in Japanese]

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This study handles some Japanese political processes from an adoption of the Kyoto Protocol (the KP) at December 1997 to a ratification of the KP at June 2002. After adoption of the KP there were confrontations among ministries, industries and NGOs, how to achieve the reduction target which Japanese government agreed by an adoption of the KP, especially about building additional 21 nuclear power plants until 2010. At March in 2001 Busch-US government proclaimed that USA refuses the ratification of the KP. On this situation Japanese industry sector, many ministries and government parties resisted to ratify the KP keenly. Prime Minister Mr. Koizumi had not changed his line to ratify the KP stubbornly. After hard coordination among political parties, ministries and industries he declared a policy to ratify the KP in Diet speech at February 2002 and the KP was ratified at June 2002.

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In this study, we investigated sleep profiles in good sleeper and poor sleeper classified by subjective report of daily sleep state. Auditory evoked potentials (AEP), N300 and N550, were measured in order to clarify the relationship between modulation of arousal level and attentional system during sleep. Six healthy undergraduate students participated in this experiment. Based on a questionnaire of sleep latency, three subjects with easy sleep initiation (good sleeper: GS, > 20 minutes) and another three subjects with difficult sleep initiation (poor sleeper: PS, < 30 minutes) were selected. We conducted three nights' experiments after one night sleep for habituating to experimental environment: the first night is control condition, the second night is the first stimulation condition, and the third night is the second stimulation condition. The stimulus used in this study was pure tone (60dB, 1000Hz) lasting 0.1 sec at 10 sec SOA. The sleep polygraph was recorded in all condition, and AEP was also recorded in two stimulation conditions. The data until the end of the first sleep cycle were analyzed. As the result, we observed that sleep latency was shorter and the appearance rate of deep sleep was lower in GS group compared to PS group. In addition, greater N550 amplitude in GS group suggests that subjects in GS group strongly pay attention to stimulus from outwards. Therefore we revealed the possibility that GS group has difficulty to maintain deep sleep by hyperactivity of attentional system, although the sleep latencies of GS group subjects were short.

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The relationship between self-efficacy and higher brain functions in normal middle and elderly people was examined. Participants were 608 community dwellers in Japanese rural town (their age ranged from 40 to 91 years old). The higher brain functions were measured by means of logical memory test, Stroop test, D-CAT (test for the assessment of attention or executive function) and verbal fluency test. The results showed that normal middle and elderly people with high self-efficacy performed cognitive tasks better than normal middle and elderly people with low self-efficacy. The results of the relationship between the interaction of self-efficacy with higher brain functions and sex differences showed that the performances of cognitive tasks in men with low self-efficacy were worse than those of men with higher self-efficacy, and that this interaction was not significant in women. Based on these findings, the relationship between self-efficacy and cognitive reserve was discussed.

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