Attention training improves happiness levels

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26540075
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Cognitive science
• Research Institution: National Institute of Information and Communications Technology
• Principal Investigator: Yamagishi Noriko 国立研究開発法人情報通信研究機構, 脳情報通信融合研究センター脳情報通信融合研究室, 主任研究員 (50395125)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 注意 / 幸福度 / 行動実験

Outline of Final Research Achievements

For developing a new cognitive mental therapy for depression, the relationship between the human mood and the attentional performance was studied.
There is a growing evidence to suggest that mood may affect the capacity to perform low-level cognitive tasks. Therefore, we examined whether a perceived happiness level affects their ability to detect a target in noise that required attention. We employed pop-out and serial visual search paradigms, implemented using a novel smartphone application that allowed search times and self-rated levels of happiness to be recorded. Using our smartphone application, we were able to replicate the classic visual search findings, and find that serial search times with the maximum numbers of distractors were significantly faster for high happiness levels than low happiness levels. Our results show that monitoring/improving attentional performance could be used for predicting/changing happiness levels.

Free Research Field

認知心理学