Final Sampling Bias in Haptic Judgments: How Final Touch Affects Decision-Making.

When people make a choice between multiple items, they usually evaluate each item one after the other repeatedly. The effect of the order and number of evaluating items on one's choices is essential to understanding the decision-making process. Previous studies have shown that when people choose a favorable item from two items, they tend to choose the item that they evaluated last. This tendency has been observed regardless of sensory modalities. This study investigated the origin of this bias by using three experiments involving two-alternative forced-choice tasks using handkerchiefs. First, the bias appeared in a smoothness discrimination task, which indicates that the bias was not based on judgments of preference. Second, the handkerchief that was touched more often tended to be chosen more frequently in the preference task, but not in the smoothness discrimination task, indicating that a mere exposure effect enhanced the bias. Third, in the condition where the number of touches did not differ between handkerchiefs, the bias appeared when people touched a handkerchief they wanted to touch last, but not when people touched the handkerchief that was predetermined. This finding suggests a direct coupling between final voluntary touching and judgment.

[Case of tuberculous pleurisy distinguished from pleurisy caused by Mycoplasma infection].

We report a case of tuberculous pleurisy that required differentiation from pleurisy caused by Mycoplasma infection. A 28-year-old woman presented to a clinic with fever and pain on the left side of her chest. A chest radiograph revealed pleural effusion in the left thorax, and the condition was diagnosed as bacterial pleurisy. The patient was referred to our hospital because of an increase in the pleural effusion despite antibiotic treatment. Mycoplasma infection was suspected because the patient was young, the white blood cell count was not elevated, and the result of the ImmunoCard Mycoplasma test (IC) for Mycoplasma pneumoniae-specific IgM antibodies was positive. However, the fever persisted even after treatment with azithromycin and pazufloxacin. The left pleural effusion was exudative, with lymphocytosis and high adenosine deaminase (ADA) levels. The results of the QuantiFERON test were positive. Therefore, tuberculous pleurisy was diagnosed, and the effusion subsided after treatment with standard anti-tuberculosis chemotherapy. Although detection of Mycoplasma infection using the IC is rapid and simple, the accuracy of this test is poor. The patient was first diagnosed with pleurisy of Mycoplasma origin because of a single high-particle agglutination titer of 1: 320 and because of the presence of exudative pleural effusion with lymphocytosis and elevated ADA levels, which has been reported in patients with Mycoplasma infection. The results of the IC test and the ADA level of the pleural effusion might not be reliable when distinguishing between tuberculous pleurisy and pleurisy caused by Mycoplasma infection.

[A case of secondary pulmonary cryptococcosis presenting with multiple cystic shadows].

An 80-year-old woman with a history of rheumatoid arthritis and steroid diabetes had been given a diagnosis of multiple bilateral pulmonary cystic lesions 16 months previously, and these lesions were observed to gradually increase on follow-up. She presented with a fever of 38 degrees C, cough, and sputum for 2 weeks, and the pulmonary cystic lesions had enlarged, and therefore she was admitted. A chest X-ray film revealed multiple cystic lesions 4 cm in greatest dimension in both the left upper and middle lung fields, and chest computed tomography (CT) scans revealed that the lesions of the left S1+2 had niveau formation with a partially thickened wall. However, the lesions in the left S4 and S5 areas and the right S8 area had thin, smooth walls. Transbronchial lung biopsy of the left S4 lesion yielded granuloma formation and yeast-like fungus bodies within multinucleated giant cells, while bronchial lavage fluid culture showed cryptococcus neoformans. It is known that pulmonary cryptococcosis presents various images and histopathologic findings, according to the immune interactions between the fungus body and the host. We report a rare case that presented with multiple cryptococcal cystic lesions.

Aerobic mineralization of hexachlorobenzene by newly isolated pentachloronitrobenzene-degrading Nocardioides sp. strain PD653.

A novel aerobic pentachloronitrobenzene-degrading bacterium, Nocardioides sp. strain PD653, was isolated from an enrichment culture in a soil-charcoal perfusion system. The bacterium also degraded hexachlorobenzene, a highly recalcitrant environmental pollutant, accompanying the generation of chloride ions. Liberation of (14)CO(2) from [U-ring-(14)C]hexachlorobenzene was detected in a culture of the bacterium and indicates that strain PD653 is able to mineralize hexachlorobenzene under aerobic conditions. The metabolic pathway of hexachlorobenzene is initiated by oxidative dechlorination to produce pentachlorophenol. As further intermediate metabolites, tetrachlorohydroquinone and 2,6-dichlorohydroquinone have been detected. Strain PD653 is the first naturally occurring aerobic bacteria capable of mineralizing hexachlorobenzene.

Isolation and characterization of a novel simazine-degrading beta-proteobacterium and detection of genes encoding s-triazine-degrading enzymes.

A moderately persistent herbicide, simazine, has been used globally and detected as a contaminant in soil and water. The authors have isolated a simazine-degrading bacterium from a simazine-degrading bacterial consortium that was enriched using charcoal as a microhabitat. The isolate, strain CDB21, was gram-negative, rod-shaped (0.5-0.6 microm x 1.0-1.2 microm) and motile by means of a single polar flagellum. Based on 16S rRNA sequence analysis, strain CDB21 was identified as a novel beta-proteobacterium exhibiting 100% sequence identity with the uncultured bacterium HOClCi25 (GenBank accession number AY328574). PCR using primers that were specific for the genes of the atrazine-degrading enzymes (atzABCDEF) of Pseudomonas sp. strain ADP showed that strain CDB21 also possessed the entire set of genes of these enzymes. Nucleotide sequences of the atzCDEF genes of strain CDB21 were 100% identical to those of Pseudomonas sp. strain ADP. Sequence identity of the atzA genes between these bacteria was 99.7%. The 398-nucleotide upstream fragment of the atzB gene of strain CDB21 was 100% identical to ORF30 of Pseudomonas sp. strain ADP, and the 1526-nucleotide downstream fragment showed 99.8% sequence similarity to the atzB gene of the pseudomonad.

Taken last, selected first: the sampling bias is also present in the haptic domain.

When people are presented with a pair of images and asked to identify which one is more attractive, their eye gaze shifts gradually toward the image that they eventually choose. This study examined whether this sampling bias also occurs in other sensory modalities by observing participants' behavior in a haptic preference task. The results indicated that the participants tended to sample the chosen item just prior to making their decision when they were instructed to identify their most preferred item (i.e., the "like" task), but not when they were instructed to identify their least preferred item (i.e., the "dislike" task). This indicates that the sampling bias is a general phenomenon regardless of sensory modality. In addition, the sampling bias in the like task was larger when the difference in preference ratings between the paired items was smaller. However, the sampling bias decreased when the two items were given equal preference ratings, despite there being a longer decision time on those trials. This suggests that the sampling bias is not simply related to task difficulty, but is also related to preference formation and/or selective encoding of task-relevant information.