The contribution of infants' self-awareness and their mothers' emotional mirroring on the develpment of their capability to understand others' minds

Research Project

Project/Area Number	15K04099
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Multi-year Fund
Section	一般
Research Field	Educational psychology
Research Institution	Kyushu Lutheran College
Principal Investigator	Hisazaki Takahiro 九州ルーテル学院大学, 人文学部, 准教授 (70412757)
Project Period (FY)	2015-04-01 – 2019-03-31
Project Status	Completed (Fiscal Year 2018)
Budget Amount *help	¥2,210,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,700,000、Indirect Cost: ¥510,000) Fiscal Year 2017: ¥650,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000、Indirect Cost: ¥150,000) Fiscal Year 2016: ¥1,040,000 (Direct Cost: ¥800,000、Indirect Cost: ¥240,000) Fiscal Year 2015: ¥520,000 (Direct Cost: ¥400,000、Indirect Cost: ¥120,000)
Keywords	心の理解 / 情動鏡映 / 情動の自己覚知 / 歩行開始期 / 自己覚知 / 強化学習 / 親の感情的鏡映 / 他者感情の推測 / 親の感情鏡映 / 1歳児 / 乳児 / 親子関係 / 感情鏡映 / 他者情動の理解 / 心の理論
Outline of Final Research Achievements	The aim of this study is to examine whether infants' sensitivity to their own emotional states mediates the effect of their mothers' emotional mirroring on the development of their capability to understand others' emotion-desire. To demonstrate such a mediate effect, a system to measure infants' sensitivity to their own facial expressions was developed. This system gives infants a task, in which a picture (hat) on a monitor is flashed when infants' facial expressions are changed. When they touch the hat while flashing, an attractive picture (animal) appears from the hat. Time and number of trials till they get aware that the change of their own facial expressions trrigers the hat flashing can be measured by the system. They were attempted to measure for 20 infants but failed because most of them didn't touch the flashing hat. On the other, infants' capability to understand others' emotion-desire and their mothers' emotional mirroring couldn't be investigated.
Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements	研究期間内で具体的な成果を出すことができなかったが，子どもの自己情動（表情）への感受性が母親の情動鏡映と子どもの情動-欲求理解の発達的関係を媒介するという仮説を実証できれば，学術的には心の理解の発達におけるシミュレーション仮説を支持することに繋がる。またその仮説を実証できれば，社会的には，近年注目されている親のMind-mindednessという概念と同等に，情動鏡映という子どもの情動に巻き込まれつつそれを子どもにフィードバックすることの発達的に重大な意味を示唆することにつながり，親が子どもの情動を的確に汲み取って共感的に関わることの大切さを改めて提言することができる。