Japanese Psychological Research最新文献

Infant faces are generally perceived as being cute and motivate the observer to look at them longer. This phenomenon is thought to be based on elemental features called baby schema (e.g., a round face and a large forehead). This study investigated the behavioral tendencies of observers in approaching infant faces using a manikin task in which infant and adult face images were presented as stimuli. Participants (N = 40) were instructed to identify with the manikin, discriminate a face on the screen, and respond by moving the manikin closer to the face (approach trials) or farther away from it (avoidance trials). The faces were presented either upright or inverted. The results showed that the approach–avoidance indices (the mean reaction time and error rate of avoidance trials minus those of approach trials) were larger for infant faces than for adult faces regardless of face orientation, although the difference was greater for upright faces than for inverted faces. This approach tendency toward infant faces is possibly due to elemental features rather than face-specific holistic features.

Laboratory and field research has reported that the appearance of infants causes observers to smile. The current study examined whether this smiling response is modulated by the observer's task and evaluative dimension. Thirty-nine young nulliparous women were asked to rate the cuteness or beauty levels of 6-month-old infants' faces using a 7-point scale in different blocks. Facial electromyograms (EMGs) were recorded of participants' facial muscles related to both smiling (the zygomaticus major [ZM] and orbicularis oculi [OO]) and frowning (the corrugator supercilii [CS]). The results showed that cuteness and beauty ratings were highly correlated with each other (r = .90), indicating that these evaluations were based on similar attractiveness-related physical features. Facial EMG responses on the smiling muscle sites, ZM and OO, increased significantly from the baseline when participants rated the faces' cuteness, and the responses were larger than when participants rated the faces' beauty. CS activity was not found to have any effect. The perceived cuteness level of the infant faces did not affect the facial EMG responses. Moreover, the magnitude of the smiling response was shown to be much smaller than that associated with voluntary smiling. These findings suggest that facial expressions while viewing infant faces do not exhibit a fixed pattern but are modulated by observers' tasks and that considering cuteness, which is based on more affective evaluations than beauty, can enhance smiling responses.

An infant's face- and speech-processing system develops during the first year from broad and non-specific to becoming a system that is tuned to the faces and languages to which they are most exposed. This phenomenon is called perceptual narrowing. Before 9 months of age, infants are capable of discriminating and recognizing individuals from any type of race/species faces. However, with increased exposure to own-race and own-species faces and lack of exposure to other types of faces, by 9 months of age, they have improved their ability to discriminate own-race faces, while they show increased difficulty in the discrimination of faces from other races and species. According to the literature, we can conclude that, by 12 months of age, most human perceptual systems have become perceptually tuned and adult-like; however, this is not true. In the following sections, we will argue that perceptual narrowing for faces occurs during the same developmental period as it does for language, and that it can be prevented or modulated with sufficient exposure to unfamiliar sounds or face types. We conclude that narrowing has been designed by natural selection to tailor an individual's cognition to their local social context. It might occur for every domain pertaining to social communication—from speech processing to emotion or gesture perception—in a process that gradually adapts the infant to their native social group.

We examined the moderating effect of regulatory foci on the efficacy of episodic future thinking in reducing delay discounting. We hypothesized that the impact of imagining positive future events (vs. recent positive events) on delay discounting of gains would be stronger for individuals with a high promotion focus than for those with a high prevention focus (Hypothesis 1). Conversely, the effects of imagining adverse future events (vs. recent negative events) on delay discounting of losses would be stronger for individuals with a high prevention focus than for those with a high promotion focus (Hypothesis 2). We conducted two experiments in which participants, randomly allocated to episodic future thinking (EFT) or episodic recent thinking (ERT) groups, completed a delayed discounting task of gain (Experiment 1) or loss (Experiment 2). Experiment 1 (N = 73) weakly supported Hypothesis 1; Experiment 2 (N = 99) did not support Hypothesis 2. Our findings suggest positive EFT is particularly effective for individuals with a high promotion focus compared to individuals with a high prevention focus, which further reveals how EFT attenuates delay discounting.

This study investigated the motivations related to autonomous and continuous disaster preparedness from the viewpoint of self-determination theory (SDT). Study 1 was a bottom-up investigation to capture the structure of motivation. Four hundred people who had already engaged in preparedness answered an open-ended question concerning the reason for their preparedness. After categorizing the descriptions, four distinct categories (personal significance, avoidance of negative affect, introjection of social norms, and other-oriented motivation) were extracted. Study 2 developed survey items, based on the four categories extracted in Study 1 and a conceptual definition of the theory, and examined their relationships with disaster preparedness. Five hundred and sixty people answered the questions on disaster preparedness motivation (32 items), autonomous disaster preparedness (four items), household preparedness (10 items), and continuous preparedness (10 items). Factor analysis of motivation extracted four factors (personal significance and avoidance of negative affect, introjection of social norms, intimate other-orientation, and general other-orientation). Correlation analysis showed that all motivations were positively correlated with autonomous, household, and continuous preparedness. The results contribute to extending the scope of application of SDT and to clarifying the motivations corresponding to disaster preparedness. For future studies, strategies to promote disaster preparedness are discussed.

Procrastination is defined as postponing a task, anticipating adverse consequences in the future. In contrast, D. A. Rosenbaum and colleagues introduced the concept of “precrastination” in 2014, defining it as people doing a task early even when involving physical cost because they desire to minimize their cognitive load. This study aimed to organize and expand the new concept and advance understanding of precrastination in everyday situations and of the associations between precrastination and self-control. Using the scenario assumption method, we examined whether people would precrastinate or procrastinate a task to remove cognitive load and clear their mind even if there was physical cost/burden (Study 1), and whether they would precrastinate or procrastinate a painful event to remove emotional load stemming from a fear of pain (Study 2). The results showed that (a) people start tasks early in order to remove cognitive and emotional load; (b) people do not start tasks early when they involve physical cost, burden, or fear; (c) people with high self-control start tasks early to remove cognitive load even when involving physical cost; and (d) people with high self-control and low fear start tasks earlier to remove emotional load.

Based on self-determination theory, this study investigates a unique variance in the effect of aspirations (future motivation) on the observed active behaviors on positive class participation, while controlling for academic motivation (current motivation). In Study 1, 364 fifth- and sixth-grade elementary school students participated in a survey to confirm the validity of the Aspirations Index for Children. Confirmatory factor analysis on the theoretically hypothesized model showed an acceptable fit for the data. In Study 2, 297 fifth- and sixth-grade elementary school students participated in this survey, assessing their aspirations and academic motivation. Furthermore, their homeroom teachers evaluated the students’ academic behaviors on positive class participation. The results of multilevel structural equation modeling, which controls for the effect of current motivation, indicated the unique variance in aspirations (future motivation): intrinsic aspirations were positively associated with active behaviors on positive class participation, whereas extrinsic aspirations showed a negative relation. This study concludes that future motivation, specifically intrinsic aspirations, facilitates active learning behaviors beyond the effect of current motivation.

We examined the effects of episodic future thinking related to achieving important learning goals on university students' learning intentions. Japanese university students (N = 70) participated in this experiment. Participants in the episodic future thinking condition were asked to imagine and describe events they would experience if they achieved their goals. In the semantic future thinking condition, we asked participants to describe their future selves after university graduation and rate the relevance of their future selves to their learning goals. Participants were then asked to respond to the learning intentions measures. Participants in the control condition responded to the measures of learning intentions after completing a questionnaire unrelated to future thinking. When the importance of goal attainment was high, participants in the episodic future thinking condition planned to study for significantly longer than those in the other conditions. Episodic future thinking related to achieving important learning goals strengthens learning intentions more than simple awareness of the future self and learning goals.