We investigated the immediate and maintenance effects of mental-imagery-based mnemonic training on improving youths’ working memory, long-term memory, arithmetic and spatial abilities, and fluid intelligence. In Experiment 1, 26 Chinese participants aged 10–16 years were divided into an experimental group that received 8 days of mental-imagery-based mnemonic training and a no-contact control group. Participants completed pre-, post-, and three follow-up tests. In Experiment 2, 54 Chinese children, all 12 years old, were divided into experimental and control groups. Participants completed pre-, (...) post-, and follow-up tests. Results showed that the training significantly affected long-term memory-related task performance but no effects were observed on working memory, arithmetic or spatial ability, or fluid intelligence-related tasks. Moreover, the effect of the training on long-term memory lasted up to one year; the more frequently the training was used, the more effective it was. A content analysis of the feedback submitted by parents of participants in Experiment 2 three months after the training showed that the children used the strategy more for memorizing content such as Chinese and English, as well as for musical scores. Furthermore, there was also the possibility that the training improved abilities and academic performance such as concentration and math performance. Our results provide a basis for the further exploration of mental-imagery-based mnemonic training as a novel training modality. (shrink)

Nisbett et al. claim that East Asians are likely to use holistic thought to solve problems, whereas Westerners use analytic thought more, and discuss the differences in the frame of the individualism/collectivism distinction. The holistic versus analytic distinction has been the greatest point of interest of dual process theories, which imply that human thinking has two sub processes. We apply a revised dual process model that proposes meme-acquired goals in both systems to explain cultural differences in thought. According to this, (...) gene-installed goals are universal across cultures, whereas meme-acquired goals depend upon culture. To introduce a dual process model means that we discuss adaptation both in terms of culture and natural selection. Hence, we propose an interactive view that supports an adaptive relation between mind and culture. (shrink)

Intercellular signaling by growth factors, hormones and neurotransmitters produces second messenger molecules such as cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) and diacylglycerol (DAG). Protein Kinase A and Protein Kinase C are the principal effector proteins of these prototypical second messengers in certain cell types. Recently, novel receptors for cAMP and DAG have been identified. These proteins, designated EPAC (Exchange Protein directly Activated by cAMP) or cAMP‐GEF (cAMP regulated Guanine nucleotide Exchange Factor) and CalDAG‐GEF (Calcium and Diacylglycerol regulated Guanine nucleotide Exchange Factor) or (...) RasGRP (Ras Guanine nucleotide Releasing Protein) are able to mediate some of the physiologic effects of the second messengers in a protein‐kinase‐independent fashion. These proteins are exchange factors for Ras family GTPases that operate in pathways that run parallel to the classic kinase‐dependent pathways. The rapidly emerging recognition of the functions of these “non‐kinase” effectors in diverse processes such as insulin secretion, thymocyte development, asthma and malignant transformation creates new opportunities for discovery and identifies potential new therapeutic targets. BioEssays 26:730–738, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

We examined the differences between estimating the emotions of protagonists and evaluating those of readers in narrative comprehension. Half of the participants read stories and rated the emotional states of the protagonists, while the other half of the participants rated their own emotional states while reading the stories. The results showed that reading comprehension was facilitated when highly extraverted participants read stories about, and rated the emotional experiences of, extraverted protagonists, with personalities similar to their own. However, the same facilitative (...) effect was not observed for less extraverted participants, nor was it observed for either type of participants under the condition in which participants rated their own emotional experiences. Thus, at least for highly extraverted participants, readers both facilitated the construction of a situation model and correctly estimated the emotional states of protagonists who were similar to themselves, perhaps due to empathy. (shrink)

This study examines the neural substrate of the understanding of human relationships in verbal communication with Japanese honorific sentences as experimental materials. We manipulated two types of Japanese verbs specifically used to represent respect for others, i.e., exalted and humble verbs, which represent respect for the person in the subject and the person in the object, respectively. We visually presented appropriate and anomalous sentences containing the two types of verbs and analyzed the electroencephalogram elicited by the verbs. We observed significant (...) parietal negativity at a latency of approximately 400 ms for anomalous verbs compared with appropriate verbs. This parietal negativity could be a manifestation of the pragmatic process used to integrate the linguistic forms with the human relationships represented in the sentences. The topographies of these event-related potentials corresponded well with those of ERPs for two second-person pronouns in Chinese. This correspondence suggests that the pragmatic integration process in honorific expressions is cross-linguistically common in part. Furthermore, we assessed the source localization by means of independent component analysis and dipole fitting and observed a significant difference in ERP between the honorific and control sentences in the IC cluster centered in the precentral gyrus and in the cluster centered in the medial part of the occipital lobe, which corresponded well with the functional magnetic resonance imaging findings for Japanese honorification. We also found several significant differences in the time-frequency analyses for the medial occipital cluster. These significant differences in the medial occipital cluster suggested that the circuit of the theory of mind was involved in the processing of Japanese honorification. Our results suggest that pragmatic and syntactic processing are performed in parallel because the person to be respected must fulfill the grammatical function appropriate for the honorific verb. (shrink)

La présente étude, portant sur l’examen des éléments initiaux de la phrase japonaise, part de l’hypothèse que la partie initiale est une place réservée aux éléments extraprédicatifs. Nos études sur des corpus nous ont fourni des éléments confirmant notre hypothèse et nous ont permis de compléter la liste d’éléments externes, notamment l’ensemble des introducteurs du cadre. Cette propriété de la place initiale n’empêche pas pour autant l’apparition d’autres éléments plus intégrés. Le déplacement des arguments en position initiale est motivé dans (...) la plupart des cas par la focalisation avec effet d’exclusivité. (shrink)

Own-age bias is a well-known bias reflecting the effects of age, and its role has been demonstrated, particularly, in face recognition. However, it remains unclear whether an own-age bias exists in facial impression formation. In the present study, we used three datasets from two published and one unpublished functional magnetic resonance imaging study that employed the same pleasantness rating task with fMRI scanning and preferential choice task after the fMRI to investigate whether healthy young and older participants showed own-age effects (...) in face preference. Specifically, we employed a drift-diffusion model to elaborate the existence of own-age bias in the processes of preferential choice. The behavioral results showed higher rating scores and higher drift rate for young faces than for older faces, regardless of the ages of participants. We identified a young-age effect, but not an own-age effect. Neuroimaging results from aggregation analysis of the three datasets suggest a possibility that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex was associated with evidence accumulation of own-age faces; however, no clear evidence was provided. Importantly, we found no age-related decline in the responsiveness of the vmPFC to subjective pleasantness of faces, and both young and older participants showed a contribution of the vmPFC to the parametric representation of the subjective value of face and functional coupling between the vmPFC and ventral visual area, which reflects face preference. These results suggest that the preferential choice of face is less susceptible to the own-age bias across the lifespan of individuals. (shrink)

This questionnaire-based observational study was conducted in July 2020 with the aim of understanding the ethical and social issues faced by health care providers (HCPs) registered with the Japanese Society of Intensive Care Medicine in intensive care units (ICUs) during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. There were 200 questionnaire respondents, and we analyzed the responses of 189 members who had been involved in COVID-19 treatment in ICUs. The ethical and social issues that HCPs recognized during the pandemic were difficulties in (...) the decision-making process with patients’ families, limitations of life-sustaining treatment, lack of palliative care, and inadequate mental support for patients’ families and HCPs. Regarding decision-making on issues of clinical ethics during the pandemic, more than half of the respondents thought they had failed to provide sufficient palliative care to patients and responded that they experienced moral distress. The free-text responses on moral distress revealed issues such as unusual treatment and care, restricted visits, challenging situations for HCPs, and psychological burden. Additionally, 38.1% of respondents experienced episodes of social prejudice or discrimination and 4.7% experienced a shortage of medical resources. Our study result shows that the moral distress of HCPs was caused by difficulties in patient-centered decision-making and insufficient medical care to patients and their families. These were caused mainly by a lack of communication due to the stronger implementation of infection control measures. We believe that it is important to address ethical and social issues during a pandemic in order to provide appropriate medical care and prevent burnout among HCPs. (shrink)

Kawasaki disease (KD) is an acute self‐limiting vasculitis with coronary complications, usually occurring in children. The incidence of KD in children is increasing year by year, mainly in East Asian countries, but relatively stably in Europe and America. Although studies on KD have been reported, the pathogenesis of KD is unknown. With the development of high‐throughput sequencing technology, growing number of regulatory noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) including microRNA (miRNA), long noncoding RNA (lncRNA), and circular RNA (circRNA) have been identified to (...) involved in KD. However, the role of ncRNAs in KD has not been comprehensively elucidated. Therefore, it is significative to study the regulatory role of ncRNA in KD, which might help to uncover new and effective therapeutic strategies for KD. In this review, we summarize recent studies on ncRNA in KD from the perspectives of immune disorders, inflammatory disorders, and endothelial dysfunction, and highlight the potential of ncRNAs as therapeutic targets for KD. (shrink)

The present study examines the 3-dimensional data of human crania from the Yayoi period (800 BC to AD 250) of the Japanese archipelago by geometric morphometrics to investigate demic diffusion patterns. This is the first study on the Yayoi crania using their 3D data and geometric morphometrics with a much larger number of skeletal remains outside of the Kyushu regions than previous studies. The comparative results between the Jōmon and Yayoi samples show that the Yayoi people (...) not only in the eastern parts but also in the western parts of the archipelago are significantly different from the final Jōmon people and the Yayoi people were not strongly affected by the Jōmon people. A relatively gradual geological cline is also found among the Yayoi population, suggesting that the immigrants from the continental East Asia moved from the western parts to the eastern parts of the archipelago though the causes of the morphological changes are unclear. (shrink)

The causes of prehistoric inter-group violence have been a subject of long-standing debate in archaeology, an- thropology, and other disciplines. Although population pressure has been considered as a major factor, due to the lack of available prehistoric data, few studies have directly examined its effect so far. In the present study, we used data on skeletal remains from the middle Yayoi period of the Japanese archipelago, where archaeologists argued that an increase of inter-group violence in this period could be (...) explained by a population-pressure hy- pothesis. We quantitatively examine the effect of population pressure on the frequency of inter-group violence by compiling an exhaustive data set. We collected demographic information based on burial jars (kamekan) and the frequency of violence based on the ratio of injured individuals. The results are consistent with the hypothesis, i. e., high population density can promote inter-group violence. (shrink)

It has been commonly claimed that prehistoric warfare in Japan began in the Yayoi period. Population increases due to the introduction of agriculture from the Korean Peninsula to Japan resulted in the lack of land for cultivation and resources for the population, eventually triggering competition over land. This hypothesis has been supported by the demographic data inferred from historical changes in Kamekan, a burial system used especially in the Kyushu area in the Yayoi period. The present study aims (...) to examine the previous claim by using an expanded dataset of human skeletal remains and Kamekan. First, in order to quantify the intensity of warfare, we developed a database of injured individuals found in the middle phase of the Yayoi period in two large populations in the northern Kyushu area, the Fukuoka plain and the upperand middle-stream of the Homan River. Second, we collected Kamekan data from site reports published after 1990 and constructed a comprehensive database to infer the demography in these areas. Finally, we compared the frequency of injured individuals and the inferred demography. The results suggest that the frequency of injured individuals and the population increase tended to be higher at the upper- and middle-stream of the Homan River than on the Fukuoka plain. Different assumptions of the lifetime of each type of Kamekan can produce mixed results on the relationship between demography and the frequency of injured individuals. They were positively correlated under the traditional assumption of constant time intervals, while there was no correlation using time intervals based on carbon dating by the National Museum of Japanese History. Thus, our results are partially consistent with the previous claim that the population increase and the lack of land and resources due to the introduction of agriculture were causes of warfare in the northern Kyushu area in the middle phase of the Yayoi period. (shrink)

Various disciplines, including evolutionary biology, anthropology, archaeology, and psychology, have studied the evolution of rituals. Archaeologists have typically argued that burial practices are one of the most prominent manifestations of ritual practices in the past and have explored various aspects of burial practices, including burial directions. One of the important hypotheses on the cultural evolution of burial practices in Japan is the kitamakura hypothesis, which claims that burial directions (including Kofuns and current burials) were intended to be oriented toward the (...) north after the Kofun period under the influence of Confucianism or Buddhism. This hypothesis would be more plausible if burial directions were not oriented northward before the Kofun period. This research focused on the burial directions in the northern Kyūshū area of the Yayoi period, i.e., the directions of the kamekan jar burials. The results are almost consistent with the hypothesis, although one notable exception is found, and its possible interpretations and implications are discussed. (shrink)

Este trabajo analiza el papel de los suidos en la ritualidad protohistórica japonesa, tomando como base la aparición de una serie de restos óseos de estos animales en contextos rituales y/o con indicios de consumo ritual, especialmente en los periodos Jōmon (ca. 10,500-300 a.n.e.) y Yayoi (1,000-900 a.n.e.-250-300 d.n.e.),. Pero antes de entrar de lleno en la problemática de estos ejemplares, es necesario realizar una retrospectiva del papel de dichos animales en el archipiélago japonés desde la Prehistoria, así como (...) de la propia domesticación del cerdo en el continente asiático y su difusión por Asia Oriental hasta llegar a las islas japonesas. A este respecto, hay que tener en cuenta que existen tres ámbitos de estudio diferenciado en lo referente a los suidos en el archipiélago japonés: Hokkaidō, el archipiélago de las Ryūkyū y las islas de Kyūshū Honshū y Shikoku. (shrink)

The present research used archaeological data, i.e., the data obtained from kamekan jar burials in the Mikuni Hills of the northern Kyushu area in the Mid- dle Yayoi period, to test the parochial altruism model. This model argued that out-group hate and in-group favor coevolved via prehistoric intergroup conflicts. If this model is accurate, such an out-group hate and in-group favor could be re- flected in the archaeological remains, such as pottery making; the more frequent intergroup conflicts are and (...) the more each group is opposed, the more independent and coherent each group will be and more evident cultural identity could be estab- lished within each group. We employed an elliptic Fourier analysis for the shapes of kamekan jar burials. We examined whether frequent intergroup conflicts in the period influenced kamekan jar pottery between subareas of the Mikuni Hills. The results suggested that the shapes of kamekan jar burials after the KIIIa type are slightly different between subareas, which is partially consistent with the model. However, the results do not support the model directly. (shrink)

The present study collected a larger set of three-dimensional data on human crania from the Kofun period (as well as from previous periods, i.e., the Jomon and Yayoi periods) in the Japanese archipelago (AD 250 to around 700) than previous studies. Three-dimensional geometric morphometrics were employed to investigate human migration patterns in finer-grained phases. These results are consistent with those of previous studies, although some new patterns were discovered. These patterns were interpreted in terms of demic diffusion, archaeological findings, (...) and historical evidence. In particular, the present results suggest the presence of a gradual geological cline throughout the Kofun period, although the middle period did not display such a cline. This discrepancy might reflect social changes in the middle Kofun period, such as the construction of keyhole-shaped mounds in the peripheral regions. The present study implies that a broader investigation with a larger sample of human crania is essential to elucidating macro-level cultural evolutionary processes. (shrink)

The first robot homicide was committed in 1981, according to my files. I have a yellowed clipping dated 12/9/81 from the Philadelphia Inquirer--not the National Enquirer--with the headline: Robot killed repairman, Japan reports The story was an anti-climax: at the Kawasaki Heavy Industries plant in Akashi, a malfunctioning robotic arm pushed a repairman against a gearwheel-milling machine, crushing him to death. The repairman had failed to follow proper instructions for shutting down the arm before entering the workspace. Why, indeed, (...) had this industrial accident in Japan been reported in a Philadelphia newspaper? Every day somewhere in the world a human worker is killed by one machine or another. The difference, of course, was that in the public imagination at least, this was no ordinary machine; this was a robot, a machine that might have a mind, might have evil intentions, might be capable not just of homicide but of murder. (shrink)

Aesthetic experience is original, dynamic and ever-changing. This article covers three research questions (RQs) concerning how immersive installation artworks can elicit emotions that may contribute to their popularity. Based on Yayoi Kusama’s and Peter Kogler’s kaleidoscopic rooms, this study aims to predict the emotions of visitors of immersive installation art based on their Twitter activity. As indicators, we employed the total number of likes, comments, retweets, followers, followings, the average of tweets per user, and emotional response. According to our (...) evaluation of emotions, panic obtained the highest scores. Furthermore, compared to traditional machine learning algorithms, Tree-based Pipeline Optimization Tool (TPOT) Automated Machine Learning used in this research yielded slightly lower performance. We forecast that our findings will stimulate future research in the fields of data analysis, cultural heritage management and marketing, aesthetics and cultural analytics. (shrink)

The evolution of altruism in human societies has been intensively investigated in social and natural sciences. A widely acknowledged recent idea is the “parochial altruism model,” which suggests that inter- group hostility and intragroup altruism can coevolve through lethal intergroup conflicts. The current article critically examines this idea by reviewing research relevant to intergroup conflicts in human evolutionary history from evolutionary biology, psychology, cultural anthropology, and archaeology. After a brief intro- duction, section 2 illustrates the mathematical model of parochial altruism (...) and some critiques of the model and its interpretation, primarily from an evolutionary biology point of view. Section 3 delves into the archaeological evidence of prehistoric intergroup conflicts in the Japanese archipelago’s Jomon and Yayoi periods, Europe’s Mesolithic period, and North America’s Pacific period as counter examples of the paro- chial altruism model. In section 4, the ethnographies of intergroup relationships and conflicts reveal that intergroup relationships in many ethnic groups are not as simple as the assumption in the mathematical model of parochial altruism. In section 5, we outline psychological research on intergroup conflicts which suggest that intergroup hostility and ingroup altruism are not necessarily correlated. In conclusion, we argue that the assumption and parameter settings of the parochial altruism model are inconsistent with empirical data. (shrink)

Despite decades of research on the reconstruction of proto-Korean-Japanese (pKJ), some scholars still reject a genetic relationship. This study addresses their doubts in a new way, interpreting comparative linguistic data within a context of material and cultural evidence, much of which has come to light only in recent years. The weaknesses of the reconstruction, according to J. Marshall Unger, are due to the early date at which pKJ split apart and to lexical material that the pre-Korean and pre-Japanese branches later (...) borrowed from different languages to their north and south, respectively. Unger shows that certain Old Japanese words must have been borrowed from Korean from the fourth century C.E., only a few centuries after the completion of the Yayoi migrations, which brought wet-field rice cultivation to Kyushu from southern Korea. That leaves too short an interval for the growth of two distinct languages by the time they resumed active contact. Hence, concludes Unger, the original separation occurred on the peninsula much earlier, prior to reliance on paddy rice and the rise of metallurgy. Non-Korean elements in ancient peninsular place names were vestiges of pre-Yayoi Japanese language, according to Unger, who questions the assumption that Korean developed exclusively from the language of Silla. He argues instead that the rulers of Koguryo, Paekche, and Silla all spoke varieties of Old Korean, which became the common language of the peninsula as their kingdoms overwhelmed its older culture and vied for dominance. Was the separation so early as to vitiate the hypothesis of a common source language? Unger responds that, while assuming non-relationship obviates difficulties of pKJ reconstruction, it fares worse than the genetic hypothesis in relation to non-linguistic findings, and fails to explain a significant number of grammatical as well as lexical similarities. Though improving the reconstruction of pKJ will be challenging, he argues, the theory of genetic relationship is still the better working hypothesis. The Role of Contact in the Origins of the Japanese and Korean Languages shows how an interdisciplinary approach can shed light on a difficult case in which the separation of two languages lies close to the time horizon of the comparative method. (shrink)

Violence and warfare in prehistory have been intensely discussed in various disciplines recently. Especially, some controversies are found on whether prehistoric hunter-gatherers had been already engaged in inter-group violence and warfare. Japanese archaeology has traditionally argued that warfare has begun in the Yayoi period with an introduction of full-fledged agriculture though people in the Jomon period, when subsistence system had been mainly hunting and gathering, had not been involved in inter-group violence and warfare. However, Lawrence Keeley, Samuel Bowles, Steven (...) Pinker, and others have recently focused on archaeological data of human skeletal remains, especially remains with some injures, arguing that prehistoric hunter-gatherers had already initiated inter-group violence and warfare. This paper aims to summarize and examine recent arguments that address the relationship between violence or warfare and human evolution based on archaeological data. In the first place, we summarize the claims of Keeley, Bowles, and Pinker that warfare had already been initiated and was commonplace among prehistoric hunter-gatherers, as well as the counter-argument of Ferguson that these original data are problematic. Secondly, we summarize the available data on human skeletal remains from the Mesolithic period in Europe (between 11,000 BC and 3,500 BC) and argue that these data support Ferguson’s argument. In particular, the available data suggests that even though inter-group violence and warfare was present during this period, it was very sporadic. Finally, we discuss the implications of this study and suggest future directions. (shrink)