Cross-cultural comparison of multisensory integration of facial and bodily expressions

2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project Area: Construction of the Face-Body studies in transcultural conditions
• Project/Area Number: 17H06345
• 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: Tokyo Woman's Christian University
• Principal Investigator: Tanaka Akihiro 東京女子大学, 現代教養学部, 教授 (80396530)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 板口 典弘 慶應義塾大学, 文学部(三田), 助教 (50706637)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-06-30 – 2022-03-31
• Keywords: 顔 / 身体 / 感覚間統合 / 感情 / 文化差

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In order to contribute to advances in face-body studies from the viewpoint of communication, Our indings about the developmental processes of cultural differences and their psychological and neural basis from the viewpoint of multisensory integration can be summarized as follows. (1) Japanese participants gradually shift from facial dominance to vocal dominance throughout childhood. (2) A series of experiments clarified the route from audiovisual emotion perception to social behavior. (3) fMRI experiments on adult immigrants revealed that they become more face-dominant during cross-cultural readaptation process, and neural activity changed in multimodal areas.

Free Research Field

認知心理学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

上記の研究成果を学術論文として出版するとともに、コロナ禍でマスク越しやオンラインでのコミュニケーションにおける顔・身体への関心と重要性が高まる中で、これらのテーマに関する顔身体学での研究成果をメディアでの解説、トークイベント、オープンラボ等を通じて広く社会に浸透させることに貢献した。田中はこれら一連の成果を著書として書き上げ、2022年9月に刊行した。