2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Understanding relationships between qualia structures and (brain-derived) information structures

Administrative Group

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Project Area	Understanding the relationship between the structure of qualia and the structure of information processing extracted from brain activity
Project/Area Number	20H05709
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Transformative Research Areas (B)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Review Section	Transformative Research Areas, Section (I)
Research Institution	Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International
Principal Investigator	Tsuchiya Naotsugu 株式会社国際電気通信基礎技術研究所, 脳情報通信総合研究所, 客員研究員 (80517128)
Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha)	大泉匡史東京大学, 大学院総合文化研究科, 准教授 (30715371) 山田真希子国立研究開発法人量子科学技術研究開発機構, 量子生命科学研究所, 上席研究員 (50557444)
Project Period (FY)	2020-10-02 – 2023-03-31
Keywords	クオリア / 情報構造 / 大規模心理実験 / 圏論 / 脳イメージング
Outline of Final Research Achievements	The objective of this research was to establish a new method for characterizing the quality of consciousness (qualia). Specifically, we aimed to establish an experimental method to quantify the relationships among qualia as a qualia structure. Further, we aimed to elucidate the correspondence between the qualia structure and neural activity. In particular, we focused on visual qualia in order to a) visualize the structure of visual qualia, b) to visualize the structure of patterns of neural activity, and c) elucidate the correspondence between the structure of visual qualia and information structures extracted from neural activity. The goal of this project team (X01) was to help promote joint research projects, planning, public relations, and international activities, and to facilitate the promotion of the entire research area toward the proposal of Transformative Area A in three years' time. This objective was generally achieved as planned.
Free Research Field	実験心理学
Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements	総括班の研究成果は、共同研究の促進・企画・広報・国際活動の計画を遂行であった。領域会議（オンライン２回、オンサイト2回）では、共同研究の促進がなされ、若手研究者の育成を行うことができた。また、企画の一部として領域手動のシンポジウムを５回開き、領域外の研究者との交流・新しい共同研究が生まれた。領域会議やシンポジウムはYoutubeを通じて国際的に広報を行うことで、領域の学術成果と知名度をあげるのに貢献した。またYoutubeでは領域内外の学生からの質問に答えるQ&Aなど、社会的意義のある貢献を行った。