Visual crowding affects reading performances. Related to this, the visual crowding effect is weaker in letter reading than in recognizing symbols in a string. A previous study reported that crowding reduction was observed exclusively in horizontal strings by participants with extensive reading experience in horizontal text strings. In the present study, we examined letter identification performance across various string orientations among Japanese readers with extensive experience reading both vertically and horizontally oriented texts. Through three experiments, we observed crowding reduction among Japanese readers in vertical test strings. Additionally, the observed crowding reduction was not robust when reading strings along unfamiliar orientations, such as diagonal orientations. These findings suggest that reading experience with specific text orientations adaptively shapes the spatial properties of letter-specific detection units. However, our results also indicate that reading experience has limited influence. For example, crowding reduction was not as robust for Japanese letters as it was for alphabet letters, showing that the influence of reading experience on crowding reduction depends on letter type, whereas letter type in previous reading does not matter. Furthermore, when the strings aligned with the zone where stronger crowding occurs, irrespective of letter type, crowding reduction was not robust, even for alphabet. These results imply that the reading experience could affect only a specific part of letter identification, which is likely important for alphabet identification in higher-level processing.

The reading ability of English readers has been shown to correlate with psychophysical measurements of dynamic visual information processing. This study investigated the relationship between reading ability and dynamic visual information processing in healthy adult native Japanese readers (n = 46). Reading ability was assessed using three different tests: the Japanese Adult Reading Test (JART), transposed-letter detection task, and oral reading. Principal component analysis was performed on the scores on the three reading tests to quantify reading ability. Psychophysical thresholds were measured for contrast detection and speed discrimination with a drifting grating stimulus as well as for tracking two targets among concentrically revolving objects, providing an upper speed limit for attentional tracking. Simple correlation analysis revealed that one of the principal components correlated with the tracking speed limit. In addition, another principal component correlated with the speed-discrimination threshold, which is consistent with previous findings in English readers. These results suggest that Japanese reading ability involves at least two different processes, each sharing underlying mechanisms with visual motion and attentional processing.

Studies have shown that possessions such as cars and dogs resemble their owners, and products such as dolls resemble their makers even when students make them. We conducted three experiments to examine which part of the dolls resembled their makers. The results demonstrated that people match dolls to their makers when their eye regions were masked (Experiment 1), and the matching is possible even with the back views of the dolls (Experiment 2). These results may indicate people match dolls to their makers based on resemblances other than faces. Experiment 3 demonstrated that no effect of resemblance in personality traits was observed when dolls' faces were visible. However, the resemblance of personality traits assumed by the dolls and their makers play an important role in the matching judgment when dolls' faces were invisible (because of back views).

Many often say that people resemble their pets or that the faces of manga characters and Buddha statues resemble those of their artists. Previous studies demonstrated that participants could match dogs with their owners, suggesting that pets resemble their owners. Other studies also demonstrated that people can match personal belongings, including inanimate objects, to their owners. However, it is unknown whether people tend to make objects that resemble themselves. In this study, we examined whether people tend to make objects that resemble themselves with dolls made of cloth as stimuli. The results demonstrated that people tend to project themselves into dolls, even in the case of amateur college students. The mere exposure effect or the algorithm "self seeks like" may be at play in not only people's selection of pets but also their making of objects.

ペット（犬）と飼い主（Roy ＆ Christenfeld, 2004），人形と作り手の間には類似性が確認されている（木村・植月，2012）。またNakajima （2013） は飼い主と犬の一部の領域を隠した刺激を用いた実験を行い，飼い主と犬は目の領域が似ており，これを手がかりに類似性判断が行われると説明する。Nakajima （2013） と同様の手続きを用いて検討した結果，作り手や人形の目や口を隠しても人形とその作り手の類似性が高いことが示されている（木村・植月，2014）。

Recently, dynamic text presentation, such as scrolling text, has been widely used. Texts are often presented at constant timing and speed in conventional dynamic text presentation. However, dynamic text presentation enables visually presented texts to indicate timing information, such as prosody, and the texts might influence the impression of reading. In this paper, we examined this possibility by focusing on the temporal features of digital text in which texts are represented sequentially and with varying speed, duration, and timing. We call this "textual prosody." We used three types of textual prosody: "Recorded," "Shuffled," and "Constant." Recorded prosody is the reproduction of a reader's reading with pauses and varying speed that simulates talking. Shuffled prosody randomly shuffles the time course of speed and pauses in the recorded type. Constant prosody has a constant presentation speed and provides no timing information. Experiment 1 examined the effect of textual prosody on people with normal hearing. Participants read dynamic text with textual prosody silently and rated their impressions of texts. The results showed that readers with normal hearing preferred recorded textual prosody and constant prosody at the optimum speed (6 letters/second). Recorded prosody was also preferred at a low presentation speed. Experiment 2 examined the characteristics of textual prosody using an articulatory suppression paradigm. The results showed that some textual prosody was stored in the articulatory loop despite it being presented visually. In Experiment 3, we examined the effect of textual prosody with readers with hearing loss. The results demonstrated that readers with hearing loss had positive impressions at relatively low presentation speeds when the recorded prosody was presented. The results of this study indicate that the temporal structure is processed regardless of whether the input is visual or auditory. Moreover, these results suggest that textual prosody can enrich reading not only in people with normal hearing but also in those with hearing loss, regardless of acoustic experiences.

With the growth in digital display technologies, dynamic text presentation is used widely in every day life, such as in electric advertisements and tickers on TV programs. Unlike static text reading, little is known about the basic characteristics underlying reading dynamically presented texts. Two experiments were performed to investigate this. Experiment 1 examined the optimum rate of dynamic text presentation in terms of a readability and favorability. This experiment demonstrated that, when the rate of text presentation was changed, there was an optimum presentation rate (around 6 letters/s in our condition) regardless of difficulty level. This indicates that the presentation rate of dynamic texts can affect the impression of reading. In Experiment 2, to elucidate the traits underlying dynamic text reading, we measured the reading speeds of silent and trace reading among the same participants and compared them with the optimum presentation rate obtained in Experiment 1. The results showed that the optimum rate was slower than with silent reading and faster than with trace reading, and, interestingly, the individual optimum rates of dynamic text presentation were correlated with the speeds of both silent and trace reading. In other words, the readers who preferred a fast rate in dynamic text presentation would also have a high reading speed for silent and trace reading.

This paper quantitatively expresses the degrees of processing difficulties caused by syntactically different reanalyses in Japanese sentences by questionnaire and self-paced reading experiments with non-syntactic factors strictly controlled. We propose the functionally incremental processing for Japanese sentences and we demonstrate that our hypothesis is effective to explain the degree of the processing difficulty in various sentence types. The peculiarity of Japanese processing and the relevance of our results to the human sentence processing model are discussed.

Short forms (SF) of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale have been developed to enhance its practicality. However, only a few studies have addressed the Wechsler Intelligence Scale Revised (WAIS-R) SFs based on data from patients with schizophrenia. The current study was conducted to develop the WAIS-R SFs for these patients based on the intelligence structure and predictability of the Full IQ (FIQ). Relations to demographic and clinical variables were also examined on selecting plausible subtests. The WAIS-R was administered to 90 Japanese patients with schizophrenia. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and multiple regression analysis were conducted to find potential subtests. EFA extracted two dominant factors corresponding to Verbal IQ and Performance IQ measures. Subtests with higher factor loadings on those factors were initially nominated. Regression analysis was carried out to reach the model containing all the nominated subtests. The optimality of the potential subtests included in that model was evaluated from the perspectives of the representativeness of intelligence structure, FIQ predictability, and the relation with demographic and clinical variables. Taken together, the dyad of Vocabulary and Block Design was considered to be the most optimal WAIS-R SF for patients with schizophrenia, reflecting both intelligence structure and FIQ predictability.