Faculty Members

 

Keiko Iwata    Professor, Ph.D

Developmental Psychology / Childhood Science

I am attempting to understand the children’s development and learning processes in childcare and education environments from a sociocultural point of view. While I focus on the ability of individual children to emulate behavior from brain science and developmental psychology points of view, I place more emphasis on where the emulation occurs within relationships, and where and within what type of sociocultural conditions it arises. My goal is to conduct research of events occurring on site that can ultimately be utilized in childcare environments.

 

Hiroyuki Okada    Professor, Ph.D

Cognitive Robotics

I am engaged in cognitive developmental robotics research, with the aim of clarifying developmental mechanisms in human cognitive processes using infants and robots. I am interested in a wide variety of subjects, from language acquisition in infants to robot vision. My objective is to connect the seemingly unrelated fields of infant research and robotics, and understand the flexible framework of intelligence. I won the 2008 and 2010 RoboCup world championship (@Home league), and the RoboCup Japan Open since 2008.

 

Tetsu Okumura    Professor, Ph.D

in charge of liaison work

 

Sachiyo Kajikawa    Professor, Ph.D

Experimental Psychology / Developmental Psychology

In order to clarify language acquisition processes and mechanisms from a cognitive developmental sciences perspective, I am conducting research on infant behavior studies, as well as on observation and paper-based surveys of mother-child interaction. I have focused my attention on the relationship between phonetic perception in language and vocabulary acquisition with input from parents. In addition, I am investigating comparisons between language and music development, and characteristics of how parents sing or speak to their children. I use acoustic analysis and cardiotachometry, with attention on the role of songs in the initial stages of language acquisition.

 

Yutaka Sakai    Professor, Ph.D

Computational Theory / Computational Psychology

The brain is an excellent learning machine. Animals can learn appropriate behavior for various situations, although they have never experienced completely identical situation in their life. It implies that the brains can extract significant information for selection of behavior from huge sensory and stored information. The current computers can not yet do such excellent extraction of information. In order to clarify how animals can do, I am exploring the mechanisms of strange phenomena observed in brain and behavior of animals, from a view point of physics. I am tackling the unexplored topic of constructing a theoretical framework for learning mechanism of animals linking from neural systems to behavior.

 

Masamichi Sakagami    Professor, Ph.D

Neuroscience / Experimental Psychology

I am conducting research investigating the basic neural mechanism of decision-making and thinking by combining experimental psychology and neuroscientific methods. My experimental methodology is the use of neuron activity records and functional brain imaging (i.e., fMRI). In addition, I am discussing and carrying out collaborative research with economists and philosophers on how basic brain functions related to decision-making may be linked with complicated social brain functions (i.e., neuroeconomics and neuroethics).

 

Tetsuhiko Sasaki    Professor, Ph.D

Molecular Biology / Neurobiology / Applied Entomology

I am investigating the development and function of brain of the European honeybee. The honeybee is a typical social insect that exhibits various social behaviors. It is surprising that they are able to carry out complicated and sophisticated behaviors using a very small brain consisting of only approximately one million neurons, which is just one ten-thousandth of the human brain. My goal is to study the framework of the simple honeybee brain at a molecular level, and clarify the relationship between the development of the brain and social behaviors.

 

Yuki Sato    Professor, Ph.D

Ecological Psychology / Body Theory

 

 

Kazuyuki Samejima    Professor, Ph.D

Computational Neuroscience / Cognitive Neuroscience

My research goal is to know the nature of the intelligence from a theoretical point of view combined with neurophysiological methods in order to investigate brain functions. How are our behavioral choices optimized, and what do neural mechanisms contribute to the process? How do we explore actions, including behavioral repertoires, in novel environments? My approach for the research is to construct a mathematical model from an information-processing perspective in order to elucidate the neural mechanisms that create intelligence, by measuring neural activity during behaving animals and comparing it with computational models.

 

Haruto Takagishi    Associate Professor, Ph.D

Social Psychology / Developmental Psychology / Social Neuroscience

I am conducting research to clarify the psychological / neural basis of social behavior through experiments that combine economic games and functional brain imaging. I am also investigating the effect theory of mind have had on the development of altruistic behavior and sense of fairness via developmental psychology experiments with preschoolers and elementary school students.

 

Tomohiko Takei    Associate Professor, Ph.D

Systems neuroscience / Neurophysiology / Computational neuroscience

We study the neural mechanisms of adaptive motor control of animals and its dysfunction. Our approach is multidisciplinary, including i) a large-scale neural recording, ii) artificial neural network, and iii) computational modelling. By taking advantage of these diverse techniques, we aim to bridge the levels of hardware (circuits), algorithm (networks) and computation (theories) of motor control, perception and decision making.

 

Yasuhiro Tanaka    Associate Professor, Ph.D

Neuroscience / Artificial Intelligence

Recently, several techniques are developed to record massively multiple neuronal populations. The activity dynamics of these neuronal populations are highly multidimensional. We are attempting to obtain such neuronal population activity with silicon probes or imaging techniques and clarify properties of the activity dynamics by utilizing deep learning and other artificial-intelligence related techniques. Our goal is to explain the generative process of animal behavior in terms of neuronal dynamics.

 

Tetsuya Matsuda    Professor, Ph.D

Clinical Neuroscience / Psychiatric Neuroscience / Neurophysiology

I am conducting research related to the neural mechanisms of social decision-making using functional brain imaging, as well as psychological and physiological methodologies. First, I examine these mechanisms with basic neuroscience; then I take an approach that connects these findings with clinical research. In my clinical research, I investigate the relationship between the pathology of mental disorders and social decision-making impairment.

 

Kenji Matsumoto    Professor, Ph.D

Cognitive Brain Science / Neuroeconomics / Systems Neuroscience

My challenge is to clarify the neural mechanisms of human agency from the view of goal-directed behavior, value representation, and motivation, by combining functional brain imaging with educational and social psychological methodologies. Some of my groundbreaking findings are highly regarded internationally.

 

Yumiko Muto    Associate Professor, Ph.D

in charge of liaison work (AI literacy education).