2018 Fiscal Year Final Research Report
Neural mechanism of hierarchical categorization
| Project/Area Number |
16K01959
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Brain biometrics
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| Research Institution | Niigata University |
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Principal Investigator |
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| Research Collaborator |
Suzuki Takafumi
Matsumoto Narihisa
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| Project Period (FY) |
2016-04-01 – 2019-03-31
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| Keywords | カテゴリ認知 / 概念化 / 視覚認知 / 抽象化 / 階層構造 / 概念形成 |
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
Abstraction is a key computing underling our intelligent capacity such as thinking, inference and linguistic activity. However neuronal basis of the cognitive process is largely unknown mainly because a lack of an appropriate animal model which enable us to measure and manipulate the direct neural activity. In this project, thus we developed a hierarchal categorization task for monkeys. We show that two out of the two monkeys learned the hierarchal categorization in which the monkey has to explicitly classify the natural categories with three abstraction levels. We also investigated the neural representation of face and its subcategories. Neural activities were recorded by electrocorticogram, local field potential and multi-unit activity in inferior temporal cortex (ITC). The results suggest that the finer category clusters are heterogeneously distributed even outside their parent category cluster and dynamically increase heterogeneity along with the cortical processing in the ITC.
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| Free Research Field |
神経生理学
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| Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements |
抽象的な概念を用いたカテゴリ認知は，ヒトの知的活動を支える基本的かつ重要な認知機能である.しかし，これまでカテゴリ認知における抽象化過程の神経メカニズムに関しては，適当な動物モデルが存在せず直接的な知見がなかった. 本研究課題ではサルにおいて三層の階層性をもつ階層カテゴリ課題を開発し，２頭中２頭の被験体において，学習が成立することを示すことに成功した．今後，脳活動計測を行い，概念形成の脳内メカニズムの検証を進めることが可能になった.
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