Early development of cultural differences in face and body

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project Area: Construction of the Face-Body studies in transcultural conditions
• Project/Area Number: 17H06343
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas (Research in a proposed research area)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Review Section: Humanities and Social Sciences
• Research Institution: Chuo University
• Principal Investigator: Yamaguchi Masami 中央大学, 文学部, 教授 (50282257)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-06-30 – 2022-03-31
• Keywords: 実験心理学 / 文化人類学 / 顔学 / 哲学

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In today's diverse societies, knowledge of cultural differences and individual variations in "face & body" is important for intercultural understanding. In particular, understanding unconscious cultural differences is considered essential for intercultural understanding. The present study aimed to investigate the origins of these cultural and individual differences. In order to understand the implicit process of cultural differences, our study examined the early development of the 'explicit process' and the 'implicit process' of face and body representations. The study also examined typical and atypical development in implicit and explicit face recognition.
These experiments were carried out on infants aged between 3 and 8 months.

Free Research Field

実験系心理学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

多様な顔と身体の発達とその受容に関する学術的成果をもとに、一般書並びにジュニア向け・乳児向けの顔絵本の発刊や、集英社インターナショナルや東京大学出版会UPでのコラム連載など積極的に発信した。2022年から2023年にかけてコロナ禍の日本のマスクについてThe Economist、The Wall Street Journal、中国のフェニックステレビ、AERA、読売新聞、朝日新聞などでコメントを発表し、NHK「視点・論点」で、マスク着用と子どの社会性の発達に言及するなど社会的貢献に尽力した。