Japanese Letters Research Articles

Mechanism of word generation in Japanese letter fluency test

The letter fluency test requires participants to generate as many words as they can in a limited time. Since the study indicated that strategy is not necessarily common for Japanese, present study was carried out to seek what kind of strategy Japanese employ in the letter fluency test and how strategy difference influence on the performances. In this study, three hundred thirty five subjects (age ranged 38-86 years old) took part in the Japanese letter fluency test. Participants who used the AIUEO order strategy (i.e. searching with in the order of Japanese syllabary) in switching generated significantly more words than participants who did not use that strategy. Mean performances of the AIUEO strategy user was 7.41 and that of no-user were 5.93. However, the switching time of both groups was not different. In the Japanese letter fluency test, Japanese preferred a retrieving strategy based on the AIUEO order to the other strategy such as random search. This is unique for Japanese compared to Alphabetic language user. Further, the study suggested that participants employ the AIUEO strategy was useful in switching to invite superior performances though previous studies have not pointed out.

The Neural Substrates for Letter String Readings in The Normal and Reverse Directions: An fMRI Study

In order to investigate the difference in cortical activations between reading letter strings in the normal direction and the reverse direction, an fMRI study was conducted. In this study, the cortical activations elicited by Japanese letter string reading and Chinese letter string reading were investigated. The subjects performed the normal direction reading task (read letter strings from left to right), and the reverse direction reading task (read letter strings from right to left). According to the experimental results, the activated brain regions during the normal and the reverse direction reading tasks were compared. It was found that visuospatial transformation was involved in the reverse direction reading task, while this function was not significant during the normal direction reading task. Furthermore, we found that there was no significant difference in cortical activation between Japanese and Chinese letter string readings.

Dissociated expressive and receptive language functions on magnetoencephalography, functional magnetic resonance imaging, and amobarbital studies

Dissociated language functions are largely invalidated by standard techniques such as the amobarbital test and cortical stimulation. Language studies in which magnetoencephalography (MEG) and functional magnetic resonance (fMR) imaging are used to record data while the patient performs lexicosemantic tasks have enabled researchers to perform independent brain mapping for temporal and frontal language functions (MEG is used for temporal and fMR imaging for frontal functions). In this case report, the authors describe a right-handed patient in whom a right-sided insular glioma was diagnosed. The patient had a right-lateralized receptive language area, but expressive language function was identified in the left hemisphere on fMR imaging- and MEG-based mapping. Examinations were performed in 20 right-handed patients with low-grade gliomas (control group) for careful comparison with and interpretation of this patient's results. In these tests, all patients were asked to generate verbs related to acoustically presented nouns (verb generation) for fMR imaging, and to categorize as abstract or concrete a set of visually presented words consisting of three Japanese letters for fMR imaging and MEG. The most prominent display of fMR imaging activation by the verb-generation task was observed in the left inferior and middle frontal gyri in all participants, including the patient presented here. Estimated dipoles identified with the abstract/concrete categorization task were concentrated in the superior temporal and supramarginal gyri in the left hemisphere in all control patients. In this patient, however, the right superior temporal region demonstrated significantly stronger activations on MEG and fMR imaging with the abstract/concrete categorization task. Suspected dissociation of the language functions was successfully mapped with these two imaging modalities and was validated by the modified amobarbital test and the postoperative neurological status. The authors describe detailed functional profiles obtained in this patient and review the cases of four previously described patients in whom dissociated language functions were found.

Keyboards for Inputting Japanese Language

The most commonly used Japanese alphabets are Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana. The Kanji alphabet includes pictographs or ideographic characters that were adopted from the Chinese alphabet. Hiragana is used to spell words of Japanese origin, while Katakana is used to spell words of western or other foreign origin. Two methods are commonly used to input Japanese to the computer. One, the 'kana input method' that uses a keyboard having 46 Japanese iroha (or kana) letter keys. The other method is 'Roma-ji input method', where the Japanese letters are composed of English input from a standard QWERTY keyboard. Both the methods have their advantages and disadvantages. This article analyses two inventions on inputting Japanese language through a computer keyboard. One invention uses a standard English keyboard to input Japanese characters, the other invention uses a standard mobile phone key board to input the Japanese characters.

Letter processing interferes with inhibition of return: Evidence for cortical involvement

Inhibition of return (IOR) refers to the finding that, when the time lag between a cue and a target is prolonged, the reaction to the target, when it eventually appears, is actually slower than with no cue. This phenomenon is thought to make visual search more efficient, and it is subserved by the left inferior parietal cortex and the supramarginal gyrus bilaterally. Interestingly, the very same brain structures are also involved in letter processing. Accordingly, we asked whether the two mental processes interfere with each other when simultaneously probed. The first experiment used a typical IOR procedure, but the cue/target placeholders were either simple geometric shapes or English letters. The results show that, although IOR is approximately the same across visual fields when shape placeholders are used, it is significantly lessened in the right visual field when letters are used as cue and target placeholders. To examine if this finding was due to potential spatial frequency differences between the placeholders, a second experiment using shapes and Japanese letters was conducted, and no differences in IOR were found. The supramarginal gyrus appears to be the most likely locus for the letter-IOR interference effect because it is active bilaterally in IOR, but only in the left hemisphere during letter processing. These findings provide support for the notion that IOR is not simply due to subcortical processes but also involves processing from cortical structures.

A psychophysically engineered Japanese font ‘ForeFinger-M’ suitable for tactile recognition

Purpose: Sans serif fonts are well known as the better fonts for recognition and reading via low resolution sensory channels, such as low vision and touch. Although narrow Gothic-type Japanese fonts have been used for these channels, the tactile recognition performance never has been perfect and satisfactory. We investigate a possibility of developing a new font based on psychophysical experiments of tactile recognition. Method: A set of Japanese Kate-kana letters were raised for tactile observation using swell papers. Letter size was fixed to 1.58 cm in height, where recognition was about 80% correct in the previous experiments. Five different font styles, i.e., Mincho (similar to Times Roman), Gothic-Narrow, Gothic-Thick, Round-Gothic, and Schoolbook were compared their correct recognition rate and recognition time. Five Japanese subjects participated in the experiment. Confusion matrices were calculated for each font type. Using principles for better recognition we obtained from the analysis of the mat...

Separating Relational from Item Load Effects in Paired Recognition: Temporoparietal and Middle Frontal Gyral Activity with Increased Associates, but Not Items during Encoding and Retention

Working memory is affected by items stored and the relations between them. However, separating these factors has been difficult, because increased items usually accompany increased associations/relations. Hence, some have argued, relational effects are reducible to item effects. We overcome this problem by manipulating index length: the fewest number of item positions at which there is a unique item, or tuple of items (if length >1), for every instance in the relational (memory) set. Longer indexes imply greater similarity (number of shared items) between instances and higher load on encoding processes. Subjects were given lists of study pairs and asked to make a recognition judgement. The number of unique items and index length in the three list conditions were: (1) AB, CD: four/one; (2) AB, CD, EF: six/one; and (3) AB, AD, CB: four/two, respectively. Japanese letters were used in Experiments 1 (kanji—ideograms) and 2 (hiragana—phonograms); numbers in Experiment 3; and shapes generated from Fourier descriptors in Experiment 4. Across all materials, right dominant temporoparietal and middle frontal gyral activity was found with increased index length, but not items during study. In Experiment 5, a longer delay was used to isolate retention effects in the absence of visual stimuli. Increased left hemispheric activity was observed in the precuneus, middle frontal gyrus, and superior temporal gyrus with increased index length for the delay period. These results show that relational load is not reducible to item load.

Separating Relational from Item Load Effects in Paired Recognition: Temporoparietal and Middle Frontal Gyral Activity with Increased Associates, but Not Items during Encoding and Retention

Working memory is affected by items stored and the relations between them. However, separating these factors has been difficult, because increased items usually accompany increased associations/relations. Hence, some have argued, relational effects are reducible to item effects. We overcome this problem by manipulating index length: the fewest number of item positions at which there is a unique item, or tuple of items (if length >1), for every instance in the relational (memory) set. Longer indexes imply greater similarity (number of shared items) between instances and higher load on encoding processes. Subjects were given lists of study pairs and asked to make a recognition judgement. The number of unique items and index length in the three list conditions were: (1) AB, CD: four/one; (2) AB, CD, EF: six/one; and (3) AB, AD, CB: four/two, respectively. Japanese letters were used in Experiments 1 (kanji—ideograms) and 2 (hiragana—phonograms); numbers in Experiment 3; and shapes generated from Fourier descriptors in Experiment 4. Across all materials, right dominant temporoparietal and middle frontal gyral activity was found with increased index length, but not items during study. In Experiment 5, a longer delay was used to isolate retention effects in the absence of visual stimuli. Increased left hemispheric activity was observed in the precuneus, middle frontal gyrus, and superior temporal gyrus with increased index length for the delay period. These results show that relational load is not reducible to item load.

La belle dame sans merci : les fantômes médiévaux à l'âge moderne

Dreams and Ghosts is the title of a book published in 1897 by Andrew Lang. Andrew Lang's title provides in itself an ideal summary of this article, the first one in a series devoted to the theme of necromancy in pre-modern and modern Japanese letters. This essay is an enquiry into the genealogy of the fantastic tale (gensō bungaku) in the modern era in Japan and an examination of the strong connections it established with traditional religion and the classics. In order to be read meaningfully, modern Japanese tales of the fantastic call for a closer examination of their classical forebears. They also require to be read in the light of various religious discourses born in the modern era, especially Buddhism. Eventually, they need to be confronted to their coeval Western counterparts in order to grasp both the differences in their treatment of the supernatural and the similarities in the motifs they commonly use. The following pages deal with two illustrious writers Kōda Rohan (1867-1947) and Izumi Kyōka (1873-1939) who were the most famous heralds of resistance to modernity among the literati. Their best fictions belong to the genre (in fact, Kyōka 's entire career was devoted to the exploration of this Twilight Zone of Japanese imagination). Rather than giving a general survey of their works belonging to this precise category, the article is an examination of the use they made of the notion of dreams and ghosts, as they inherited it from the medieval corpus of the nō plays. The structure of the mugen nō (nō of illusions and dreams) they transposed into their fictional works is also closely connected to the Buddhist notions of redemption, of the after life and of gender. The introduction deals with the general situation of Buddhism in modern Japanese letters and with the functions of the religious past in Rohan and Kyōka 's tales. The first part deals with the origins and the definition of the word mugen nō from Zeami's time to its revival in the Taishō era (1912-1926). The three other parts of the article are devoted to representative fictions of Rohan and Kyōka read in association with Buddhist motifs and the world of the nō plays. Many recurrent images run through texts like Taidokuro (Facing the Skull) (1890), Kōya Hijiri (The Holy Man of Mount Kōya) (1900) and Shunchū (One Day in Spring) (1906). In this article, we have dealt mainly with the oneiric structure of these texts and with the motif of the femme fatale around which the various tales develop. These two themes - one is structural (narrative patterns) and one belongs to the history of representations (ghosts), allow us to read these texts in close connection to the various classical sources meaningfully used by their authors to give birth to their fictional worlds. The form of the dream-play revived in the modern era, equally shows the possibility of transforming the writing of fiction into a necromantic rite of placation. In using Buddhist notions of the afterlife and of desire through the prismatic lens of the nō plays, these texts vindicate the classical notion of literature as a form of sacred conversation between the living and the dead.

Editing Japanese Letters to the Asahi Shimbun

AbstractEvery nation, every society has its share of historical memories. They include, most obviously, the experiences of people who lived through past events, as they recall them. Then there is the record, written down in textbooks or literary works transmitted to generations who came after these events, but relived them vicariously, trusting in the accuracy of their national historians. Often historical records are magnified—or smudged out—by popular myths. In some cases, whether because of wars, revolutions, or other political upheavals, the records for a period of history are defective or totally missing from the national memory.

Japanese Letters to the Editor of the Asahi Shimbun, 1986.1987

Japanese Letters to the Editor of the Asahi Shimbun, 1986.1987

Effect of oral treatment of Perilla frutescens and its constituents on type-I allergy in mice.

Perilla frutescens Britton (perilla, Labiatae) is a medicinal herb prescribed in Saiboku-to [Japanese letters: see text], which is a Kampo formula effective for allergic diseases such as bronchial asthma. The present study was conducted to evaluate the anti-allergic effect of orally administered perilla decoction and to identify the active constituents using mice ear-passive cutaneous anaphylaxis (PCA)-reaction, which is one of the animal models for type I allergy. Perilla decoction significantly suppressed PCA-reaction, and the inhibition % at the dose of 500 mg/kg was 43%. The perilla decoction contains 5.3% of luteolin 7-O-[beta-glucuronosyl(2-->1)beta-glucuronide], 1.6% of apigenin 7-O-[beta-glucuronosyl(2-->1)beta-glucuronide], 0.49% of scutellarin, and 2.5% of rosmarinic acid (weight of compound/dried weight of perilla decoction %), respectively. When these constituents were orally administered to mice at the dose equivalent to 500 mg/kg of perilla decoction, rosmarinic acid and apigenin 7-O-[beta-glucuronosyl(2-->1)beta-glucuronide] significantly suppressed PCA-reaction, and their inhibition % was 41% (p<0.01) and 32% (p<0.05), respectively. Since the inhibition % or perilla decoction and rosmarinic acid were nearly equal, the anti-allergic effect of perilla decoction depends primarily on rosmarinic acid. The standard Saiboku-to decoction contained 0.013% of rosmarinic acid, which was too low to exhibit anti-allergic activity in a daily dose of Saiboku-to in adults, suggesting that perilla would be prescribed in Saiboku-to to exhibit other pharmacological effects than its anti-allergic activity, such as a sedative.

709 書道運筆時における速度パターンとそのロボットへの応用(ロボ・メカI)

709 書道運筆時における速度パターンとそのロボットへの応用(ロボ・メカI)

Responses to silent Kanji reading of the native Japanese and German in task subtraction magnetoencephalography

The neuromagnetic activities evoked by semantic processing were localized by magnetoencephalography (MEG). We observed distinct time courses of the activities in native speaking Japanese subjects (Japanese speaker) and German subjects (German speaker) during silent reading of Japanese letters; Kanji and meaningless figures made by deforming the Arabian letters. There were significant differences in amplitude of the activities between Kanji and meaningless figure stimuli. The responses with meaningless figure stimuli were subtracted from those with Kanji stimuli to demonstrate the semantic responses. Earlier responses peaked at about 273.3±50.8 and 245.0±23.8 ms (mean±S.D.) and were mainly located in the right fusiform gyrus (FuG) in the Japanese and German speakers, respectively. All the Japanese speakers constantly showed additional later responses in the left superior temporal gyrus (STG) and the supramarginal gyrus (SmG) at approximately 616.1±105.5 ms, whereas no further activity was observed in the German speakers who did not know the meaning of each Kanji. Because the later responses in the STG and SmG in the Japanese speakers were only observed in their dominant hemisphere, we believe the source of these responses to be part of the neural basis of Kanji semantic processing. The task subtraction MEG analysis could be a powerful method to discriminate distinct responses and visualize the neural networks involved in semantic processing.

Temporal factors for vibrotactile letter reading.

Using an apparent-motion mode, the psychophysical effect of apparent movement was introduced for tactile letter reading. This mode reduces time for the tracing mode. Five temporal parameters were examined for application to actual communication. 4 subjects recognized words composed of 3 to 7 Japanese letters in about 5 seconds.

Japanese/English English/Japanese glossary of scientific and technical terms

Not only will this bilingual glossary save time, but users will find the terms easy to look up, pronounce and understand. Covers 120 subject fields. There are 3,000 chemical, 1,600 mathematical, 3,700 physics, 900 computer and logic, 3,200 engineering and 3,700 biological terms. Includes numerous words used in light of today's ecology and features ''kanji'' (Chinese characters) and ''kana'' (Japanese letters).

通常学級における平仮名書字学習困難児の実態とその指導形態

通常学級における平仮名書字学習困難児の実態とその指導形態

The Paper Door and Other Stories

No modern Japanese writer was more idolized than Shiga Naoya. Paper Door and Other Stories showcases concise, delicate art of this writer who is often called the god of Japanese short story. Doyen of Japanese letters Donald Keene ranks some of Shiga's stories among most brilliant achievements in this genre by any twentieth-century Japanese writer. Shiga's unique style is concise and simple, with no unnecessary words. With subtlest of gestures, he evokes fullness of experience. Lane Dunlop's masterly translation of seventeen of Shiga's finest stories has provided English readers their first overview of author's work. Now back in print, book is augmented by Donald Keene's new preface contextualizing Shiga's awesome literary gifts. Dunlop has chosen stories that aptly represent Shiga's range and virtuosity. With selections spanning forty years, from fable-like The Little Girl and Rapeseed Flower to psychologically complex A Gray Moon, this collection delineates development of Shiga's rare genius.

Haidinger's brushes phenomenon for control of eye-fixation in a laterality experiment.

Haidinger's brushes phenomenon, as a fixation point, was examined in an experiment on laterality. 9 subjects were asked to recognize a Japanese letter presented in a hemifield and to estimate the accuracy of eye-fixation. A central digit was presented for 500 msec. before a letter. The subjects had twofold control of eye movement in the condition in which the brushes were presented. Most were able to maintain eye fixation and/or to detect eye movement more easily in the condition in which the brushes were presented. Left visual-field dominance in letter recognition was observed in both conditions both when Haidinger's brushes were presented and when they were not. The phenomenon significantly decreased the mean percent correct letters recognized in both right and left visual fields.

A Study on the Writing of Japanese Letters in School Children

A Study on the Writing of Japanese Letters in School Children