Masuo Koyasu

Culture, executive function, and social understanding

Much of the evidence from the West has shown links between childrens developing self-control (executive function), their social experiences, and their social understanding (Carpendale & Lewis, 2006, chapters 5 and 6), across a range of cultures including China. This chapter describes four studies conducted in three Oriental cultures, suggesting that the relationships among social interaction, executive function, and social understanding are different in these cultures, implying that social and executive skills are underpinned by key cultural processes.

Lost in Translation? Comparing British, Japanese, and Italian Children’s Theory-of-Mind Performance

Findings from cross-cultural theory-of-mind studies highlight potential measurement effects and both general (e.g., East-West) and specific (e.g., pedagogical experiences) cultural contrasts. We compared theory-of-mind scores for children from UK and Italy (two Western countries that differ in age of school entry) and Japan (a Far-Eastern country in which children, like their Italian counterparts, start school later than British children). Confirmatory factor analysis was applied to data from 268 age-gender- and verbal ability-matched 5- to 6-year olds. Key findings were that (i) all 8 indicators loaded onto a single latent factor; and (ii) this latent factor explained significant variance in each group, with just one indicator showing differential item functioning. Supporting the importance of pedagogical experiences, British children outperformed both their Italian and Japanese counterparts.

Beliefs About Overcoming Psychological Problems Among British and Japanese Students

Abstract This study was part of a series investigating lay attributions for the cure of psychological problems. Three groups of students–Japanese students in Japan, Japanese students studying in England, and British students–completed a questionnaire and rated the perceived efficacy of 24 different strategies for overcoming each of 5 psychological problems: agoraphobia, depression, smoking cessation, lack of confidence, and obesity. Factor analysis of the curative strategies revealed 5 interpretable factors, the first 3 of which were Professional Help, Inner Control, and Understanding. There were numerous cultural differences between the British group and both Japanese groups in their written ratings of strategies, particularly professional help, for each psychological problem.

Can We Apply an Emotional Competence Measure to an Eastern Population? Psychometric Properties of the Profile of Emotional Competence in a Japanese Population:

Researchers have repeatedly argued that it is important to determine whether the psychometric properties of an emotional competence measure hold in Eastern populations because there may be cultural variability in abilities linked with emotional competence. However, few studies have examined potential differences in an emotional competence measure in Eastern cultures. To fill this gap, we investigated the applicability of the Profile of Emotional Competence to a Japanese population. Results demonstrated measurement and structural invariance across our Japanese and the original Belgian data sets. As was found in the Belgian sample, this measure showed adequate convergent and criterion validity in the Japanese sample. Furthermore, the scores on this measure were stronger predictors of subjective health and happiness in the Japanese than Belgian population. This measure also showed incremental validity. Our results suggest that the Profile of Emotional Competence is applicable to the Japanese population, an Eastern society.

Do Students from Different Cultures Think Differently about Critical and Other Thinking Skills

In this chapter, we explore what students from different cultural backgrounds think “good” thinking skills are, including the skills they perceive as being necessary in their studies. We report on findings from focus group interviews we conducted with undergraduate university students from Kyoto and Okinawa in Japan, and from Auckland in New Zealand. What the students said during the interviews shows important similarities in views about what “good thinkers” possess, including many qualities associated with critical thinking such as consideration of different or alternative perspectives. However, when we specifically asked about the meaning of “critical thinking,” many of the students from Okinawa indicated uncertainty in their responses, and the students from Auckland and Okinawa also referred to thinking approaches that are not commonly associated with critical thinking such as intuition and positive thinking. The findings from our investigation suggest that students need more explicit instruction to promote critical thinking skills development, and that they should be provided clearer, more transparent explanations of the thinking skills they are expected to demonstrate in their courses of study.

Role-play facilitates children's mindreading of those with atypical color perception

The present study examined the effects of role-play experience on children’s mindreading ability. Forty-one primary school children (20 boys, 21 girls, mean age: 9.37 years, range: 8–11 years) were introduced to a communication task in which the use of mindreading was essential. During each trial, participants viewed a shelf, presented on a laptop, which contained several familiar objects, and they were instructed to touch an object on the shelf following an order issued by a “manager” who stood at the opposite side of the shelf. There were two managers: one was a monkey manager with normal color vision, and the other was a dog manager with restricted color vision. The monkey manager could see all the objects in the same colors as the participants, whereas the dog manager saw some objects in different colors. Participants were required to respond according to the manager’s instruction. In the restricted color vision condition, the dog manager saw the colors of objects differently; thus, participants had to work out his intentions, according to his different perspective. In the normal color vision condition, all objects were in the same colors as those seen by the monkey manager. Before the test phase, participants in the role-play group were provided a role-play experience in which they assumed the role of the dog manager with restricted color vision. The experimental data were analyzed using a 2 × 2 mixed-design ANOVA (role-play condition × communication partner condition) to examine differences in the error rate. Both main effects and its interaction were significant. According to the post-hoc analyses, participants in the no-role-play condition made significantly more errors in the restricted color vision condition than in the normal color vision condition, whereas no such difference was found among participants in the role-play condition. These results suggest that role-play experience could facilitate mindreading of characters with restricted color vision.

Role-Play Experience Facilitates Reading the Mind of Individuals with Different Perception

The present study examined effects of role-play experience on reading the mind of people with different perception. It is normally difficult but very important in daily life to understand people with different characteristics, including those with restricted color vision. We explored the mechanisms of reading the mind of people with different perception. Forty university students were introduced to a communication task in which the use of mindreading was essential. During each trial, participants viewed a shelf, presented on a laptop computer, which contained several familiar objects, and they were instructed to touch an object on the shelf following an instruction issued by a partner who stood at the opposite side of the shelf. There were two partners: one was a monkey with normal color vision and the other was a dog with restricted color vision. The monkey could see all the objects in the same colors as the participants, whereas the dog saw some objects in different colors (e.g., he saw as yellow objects that the participants saw as red). Participants were required to respond according to the partners instruction. In the restricted color vision condition, the dog saw the colors of objects differently; thus, participants had to work out his intentions (i.e., mind read), according to his different perspective. In the normal color vision condition, all objects were in the same colors as those seen by the monkey. Before the test phase, the role-play group had a role-play experience in which participants assumed the role of people with restricted color vision. No-role-play participants made significantly more errors in the restricted color vision condition than in the normal color vision condition, whereas among role-play participants, there was no difference between conditions. These results suggest that role-play experience facilitates reading the mind of people with perceptual experiences different from our own.

Decision making processes based on social conventional rules in early adolescents with and without autism spectrum disorders.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by problems with reciprocal social interaction, repetitive behaviours/narrow interests, and impairments in the social cognition and emotional processing necessary for intention-based moral judgements. The aim of this study was to examine the information used by early adolescents with and without ASD when they judge story protagonists as good or bad. We predicted that adolescents with ASD would use protagonists’ behaviour, while typically developing (TD) adolescents would use protagonists’ characteristics when making the judgements. In Experiment 1, we measured sentence by sentence reading times and percentages for good or bad judgements. In Experiment 2, two story protagonists were presented and the participants determined which protagonist was better or worse. Experiment 1 results showed that the adolescents with ASD used protagonist behaviours and outcomes, whereas the TD adolescents used protagonist characteristics, behaviours, and outcomes. In Experiment 2, TD adolescents used characteristics information when making “bad” judgements. Taken together, in situations in which participants cannot go back and assess (Experiment 1), and in comparable situations in which all information is available (Experiment 2), adolescents with ASD do not rely on information about individual characteristics when making moral judgements.

Differences Between Acting as if One Is Experiencing Pain and Acting as if One Is Pretending to Have Pain Among Actors at Three Expertise Levels

This study aims to examine how acting skills develop by comparing actors at three expertise levels. Actors played four scenes: “not having any pain.” “suffering pain,” “pretending to feel pain,” and “pretending not to feel pain.” Their performances were videotaped, and then rated by 46 (Study 1) and another 40 (Study 2) university students. Study 1 revealed that the less experience actors have, the easier it was for the participants to identify the specific scene they were playing. Study 2 indicated that less experienced actors might be so conscious of the audience that their performances are exaggerated, whereas the subtleties involved in the high-quality acting of experienced actors may make their intentions less clear to the audience. The findings suggest that it is important to act in accordance with what is needed in the scene, taking not only the audience but also the setting as a whole into account.