Satoshi Shimai

INFLUENCES OF TV GAMES ON PHYSICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT OF JAPANESE KINDERGARTEN CHILDREN

The present study was an investigation of playing a TV game and its influences on physical and psychological development of kindergarten children. A self-completed questionnaire was delivered to the parents of 426 children. Of these, 408 had fully completed answers. Questions regarded the amounts of TV game play, its influences on health and on development of children and the attitudes of parents toward the game. Analysis indicated that the kindergarten children, especially boys, played frequently and both the percentage of players and the number of playing hours increased with age. Few adverse effects were reported on vision or other aspects of physical health. Children who played the game had much higher scores on sociability than those with no experience. This seemed to reflect that children acquired a new repertoire of plays from the TV game.

TV GAME PLAY AND OBESITY IN JAPANESE SCHOOL CHILDREN

A survey conducted in 9 cities in Japan indicated for 1517 boys and 1546 girls there was more use of TV games for longer periods when children were classified as obese than when classified as moderate or lean. More boys than girls played although most children had experience and many owned TV game machines.

Effects of bilateral amygdala lesions on neophobia and conditioned taste aversion in mice.

The effects of bilateral lesions of the basolateral amygdala on the neophobia to a novel solution and on the conditioned taste aversion were investigated in 35 male CFW mice. Analysis of consumed saccharine solution showed that the amygdala lesions in mice diminished the neophobia and conditioned taste aversion. These findings were consistent with previous data from rats and suggested that amygdala is an important area for processing gustatory information in mice.

FACILITATION OF DISCRIMINATED REARING-AVOIDANCE IN RATS WITH HIPPOCAMPAL LESIONS

Effects of bilateral hippocampal lesions were investigated in a newly developed discriminated rearing-avoidance task. A significant facilitation of avoidance conditioning was found in rats with hippocampal lesions. The over-all escape topography of the hippocampal-lesioned rats was mostly jumping whereas that of the controls was rearing. These findings suggest that the hippocampal lesion increases reactivity to shock.

PLEASANTNESS AND UNPLEASANTNESS OF ENVIRONMENTAL SOUNDS

The present study was done to identify environmental sounds as pleasant or unpleasant for use as stimuli. On a questionnaire of 138 pleasant and 150 unpleasant environmental sounds, students estimated the frequency of pleasant and unpleasant experiences for each sound item. More than half of the students rated 25 environmental sounds “always” or “often” pleasant and that 26 sound sources were rated as “always” or “often” unpleasant. Factor analyses (Promax) yielded 20 factors with eigenvalues greater than 1.0 for pleasant sounds and 27 for unpleasant sounds. Some of natural and musical sounds were pleasant for most subjects. Sounds of alarm, excretion, and scratching were unpleasant for most subjects. Some environmental sounds may be estimated as pleasant for some but unpleasant for others.

Pleasantness-Unpleasantness of Environmental Sounds and Gender Difference in Evaluation

The present experiment examined emotional evaluation of 40 environmental sounds which were presented to 388 college students in a lecture room. Students were required to rate pleasantness-unpleasantness, to identify the sounds, and to rate their confidence about their identifications. Analysis showed that the pleasant sounds were natural and musical sounds and that the unpleasant sounds were sounds of a belch, of a dentists drill, and of scratching on a blackboard. It is interesting that for pleasant sounds confidence was always high, which suggested that emotional evaluation of the environmental sounds was closely related to the confidence of observers in their identifications of the sounds. Gender differences were noted on the ratings on pleasantness-unpleasantness of environmental sounds, that is, women evaluated the pleasant sounds as more pleasant than men, and men evaluated the unpleasant sounds as not so unpleasant as did women.