Experimental research on perceptual awareness in infants

2019 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 16H03755
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Experimental psychology
• Research Institution: Japan Women's University
• Principal Investigator: KANAZAWA So 日本女子大学, 人間社会学部, 教授 (80337691)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 本吉 勇 東京大学, 大学院総合文化研究科, 教授 (60447034)
• Project Period (FY): 2016-04-01 – 2019-03-31
• Keywords: 乳児 / 知覚 / 質感

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We investigated infants’ perceptual awareness using basic infants’ vision experiments. In one study we investigated infants' ability to detect and identify a face in a rapid serial visual presentation. Results suggest that the temporal speed of face processing at 7 and 8 months of age would be comparable to that of adults. In second study, we investigated surround suppression in infants. Infants at 7 to 8 months of age showed higher sensitivity for a small motion stimulus than for a large one. However, infants under 6 months showed the opposite result; motion sensitivity was higher for a large stimulus. These results suggest that the suppressive surround regions beyond classical receptive fields develop in the second half of the first year. Our findings suggest that the summation area for motion is broad with no surround suppression in early infancy and that it narrows and acquires suppressive surround regions in the first year of life.

Free Research Field

実験心理学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究では、乳児の意識的な知覚過程を明らかにした点である。特に、3か月以下のより幼い乳児において、運動視のメカニズムが異なっていることを明らかにした研究（Nakashima et al.,2019）は、幼い乳児の知覚システムが、むしろ、老人の知覚システムと同様であることを示唆しており、社会的なインパクトも大きく、Current Biology内においてもイラスト入りのわかりやすい補足記事が掲載され一定の社会的なインパクトをもったと評価できる。