Most previous research has demonstrated that receiving ability-focused praise negatively affects intrinsic motivation following failure. Surprisingly, a recent study showed that ability-focused praise affects not only the praisee but also the person offering praise, that is, the praiser. However, evidence of the effects on the praiser is quite limited, despite the utility of praise in education. Therefore, the present study employed face-to-face interaction to advance the knowledge of the effects of praise on the praiser. Two experiments were conducted in which (...) undergraduate participants praised a research confederate. We measured attentional engagement using an eye-tracker as a behavioral indicator of intrinsic motivation, as well as self-reported task enjoyment. To estimate the effect of praise, we combined the results of two experiments and conducted a Bayes factor meta-analysis. The results showed that in the ability praise group, participants’ attentional engagement in a task was significantly lower than in the control group. The present finding indicates that ability-focused praise negatively affects the praiser’s intrinsic motivation and suggests that praise should be used with caution in social and educational contexts. (shrink)

Takahashi translation * is a translation which means reducing all of the redexes in a λ-term simultaneously. In [4] and [5], Takahashi gave a simple proof of the Church–Rosser confluence theorem by using the notion of parallel reduction and Takahashi translation. Our aim of this paper is to give a simpler proof of Church–Rosser theorem using only the notion of Takahashi translation.

Though there has been an array of methods to evaluate the extent of sarcoidosis, it is generally difficult to detect central nervous system involvement. Recently it has become accepted that 18F-FDG PET is more sensitive than gallium scintigraphy in finding sarcoid lesions, however its usefulness and limitations for detecting sarcoidosis in the central nervous system, especially in the spinal cord, has rarely been investigated. Two patients with pathologically confirmed sarcoidosis manifested spinal symptoms. We conducted 18F-FDG PET along with conventional imagings (...) before and after treatment. Abnormal FDG uptakes which could not be detected by gallium scintigraphy were shown in the spinal cords in both patients. These abnormal uptakes were diminished in accordance with clinical improvement after treatment. Our findings suggest that 18F-FDG PET is effective in detecting and tracking the activity of spinal sarcoidosis. (shrink)