3rd February (Sat.)

Tohoku University Graduate School of Information Sciences
Two-Year Master’s Program
International student admission
Written Examination
Group 6 Psychology and Philosophy⚫

Select 3 out of 12 questions from these areas: psychology (sensation and perception, cognition, learning and memory,
personality, psychometrics) and philosophy (history of philosophy). Applicants for either psychology laboratories(cognitive psychology, human learning and memory, visual cognition, cognitive psychology of communication) mustselect from the six questions of Psychology I, Psychology II, Psychology III, Psychology IV, Psychology V, andPsychology VI. Similarly, applicants for philosophy laboratories (philosophy of human information, philosophy of logicalanalysis) must choose from the following 6 questions: Philosophy I, Philosophy II, Philosophy III, Philosophy IV,Philosophy V, and Philosophy VI.

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On each answer sheet, fill in your examinee's number in the Examinee No. box, and in the Question No. box, fill in thequestion number you are answering in the sheet.

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Six answer sheets are enclosed, including a spare. If there is not enough paper space even with the spare answer sheets,the reverse side of the paper should be used.

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After the examination, all question and answer sheets will be collected. Submit them according to the instructions ofthe examiner.

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Examination hours: 10:00 -13:00

Psychology I

An experiment was conducted to investigate the capacity of human visual working memory in the following
way. A fixation point and several color patches were presented on the display. After 1 second, all color
patches disappeared from the display. Then, one of the initially presented color patches reappeared on thedisplay for 0.25 seconds, but the location of that color patch was displaced horizontally from the initialposition. This displacement Δ was used as an experimental variable and was systematically varied from 5degrees to the left to 5 degrees to the right relative to the initial position. Furthermore, the number of color
patches (N) to be presented on the display was used as a parameter, and N was one of four types ofparameters: 1, 2, 4, and 6. One color patch presented on the display consisted of one color, and when twoor more color patches were presented, each color patch was set to have a different color. Participants’ task
was to report the direction of the displacement of the color patch. Answer the following questions.
A) For each number N of color patches, a typicalpsychometric function was obtained bytheproportionofrightward

judgments as a function of displacement Δ.
When the slopes of each psychometricfunction were compared, the slope gradually
decreased with the increase of N (Fig. 1).
Compared to the conventional view of visual
working memory, explain what new things
can be said about the mechanism of visual
working memory from these results.

Proportion of rightward judgment

plotting

The number of color patches N1120.8460.60.40.20-5B) Compared to traditional visual working

-2.5
02.5
Displacement Δ (deg)5memory experiments, the displacement Δ

Figure 1. Proportion of rightward judgments

used in this experiment was small. Focusing

as a function of displacement. A negativeonvalue for displacement represents a shift tothisdifferenceintheamountofdisplacement, use Figure 1 and explain whythe left.

there is a difference from the conventionalview of visual working memory mentioned in Question A.
C) Based on the explanation given in Question B, describe the possible mechanisms for allocating
visual working memory resources.

Psychology IITo investigate the neural mechanism of stereopsis, we created a visual pattern in which many dots wererandomly arranged on a gray background (This is called RDS) and measured the responses of neurons in
the primary visual cortex when presenting the RDS with a binocular disparity. We used two types of RDSs:
correlated RDS in which white dots were presented for both the right and left eyes, and anti-correlated
RDS in which black dots were presented for the right eye and white dots were presented for the left eye.
When we measured neural responses by changing the amount of binocular disparity in a RDS, we obtained
the results shown in Figure 2. Answer the following questions.
A) Using the two types of RDS described above, the amount of change in vergence eye
movements was measured when binocular disparity suddenly changed. When a graph wasplotted in which the horizontal axis represents the binocular disparity and the vertical axis
represents the amount of change in vergence eye movements, the shape of the graph was
similar to that shown in Figure 2. Note that the change in vergence eye movements is 0 whenbinocular disparity is 0. Describe specifically what changes in vergence eye movements
occurred for each of the two types of RDS.
B) When the amount of depth perception was measured by changing the amount of binoculardisparity of the anti-correlated RDS, no clear depth was perceived even though the amountof binocular disparity was increased. On the other hand, when the amount of perceived depthwas measured by changing the amount of binocular disparity of the correlated RDS, thedepth was clearly perceived and increased with binocular disparity. Describe what can beconsidered about the neural processing of depth detection in the early stages of the visualsystem.
Correlated RDS
Anti-correlated RDS
Neural response

Figure 2. Responses of a neuron in theprimary visual cortex to binocular disparity
for correlated and anti-correlated RDS.
Positivevaluesofdisparity

represent

uncrossed disparity, and negative values
represent crossed disparity.
-3-2-10123

Binocular disparity (deg)Psychology III

Design an original psychological experiment utilizing Generative AI† and create a research proposal. Clearly articulate
the background and reasons inspiring the research, the uniqueness of the study, the academic "question," research
objectives and hypotheses. Elaborate on specific research plans (methods, participants, conditions, hypotheses, etc.)
and provide detailed descriptions of anticipated results. In addition, explicitly state the type of Generative AI to be usedand discuss the reasons and merits for utilizing Generative AI. Furthermore, address any potential issues or concerns
associated with the use of Generative AI.

†Artificial Intelligence technology that can automatically generate digital content such as text, images, audio, andvideos. Representative examples include "Stable Diffusion," capable of generating images, and "ChatGPT," which cangenerate text.

Psychology IV

Give an explanation for the illusory correlation phenomenon with specific examples and discuss thepsychological implications of your explanation.

Psychology VExplain the points to be considered when creating a questionnaire survey form, including the order
and wording of questions. Also, discuss how to deal with satisficing, which tends to be a problem inweb surveys.

Psychology VI

Answer both a and b below.
a. Describe Memory Span.
b. Consider and briefly describe an experimental method for measuring memory span.

Philosophy I

Explain Aristotle’s term of “energeia.”

Philosophy II

Explain Hobbes’ term of “state of war.”

Philosophy III

Explain Kant’s term of “taste judgement.”

Philosophy IV

Explain Sartre’s term of “engagement.”

Philosophy V

Explain the paradox of material implication.

Philosophy VI

Explain the possible world semantics.