Shoji Itakura
Biographic Data
| ID | 89132 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Shoji Itakura |
| GIVEN NAMES | Shoji |
| FAMILY NAME | Itakura |
| SIGNATURE | ITAKURA S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Kyoto University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1713-2002 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 51 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 48 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 50 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1987 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Human Perception of a Robot as an Authority Figure
We explored whether and how individuals attribute authority to a robot. Online participants ( N = 362 Japanese adults) received short videos showing a social interaction between a group of three human actors and a lone agent. Crucially, in the videos, the group interacted with a robot or a fourth human actor. The group bowed deeply for the lone agent. After each video, participants were asked to say to what extent the lone agent can be described …
Others’ requests may dampen the desire to do good
There exists cultural variation in how people react to prosocial obligations, but we still know little about when these differences emerge in development and how they can be explained. We investigated this in a study with 6- to 11-year-old children ( N = 686) in five cultural contexts. Children listened to scenarios about spontaneous and requested (within-subjects) helping and sharing. They rated requested scenarios as less desirable and less sat…
Cross-cultural moral judgments and emotions in preschoolers
The study aims to investigate the effect of cultural background between Italy and Japan on 5-year-old children’s moral judgements and emotion attributions towards human and robot. The children watched videos drawn from classic ‘happy victimizer’ stories, in which the transgressors were either a child or a robot, violating rules against stealing or not sharing. We assessed the children’s attribution of emotions both to the transgressors and to the…
Cultural Differences in Visual Attention Emerge in Infancy
East Asians are more likely than North Americans to attend to visual scenes holistically, focusing on the relations between objects and their background rather than isolating components. This cultural difference in context sensitivity—greater attentional allocation to the background of an image or scene—has been attributed to socialization, yet it is unknown how early in development it appears, and whether it is moderated by social information. W…
Culture-specific socialization in the first year predicts infants’ prosocial development at the end of the second year
In a series of two studies, we investigated the role of culture-specific parenting practices in the early development of prosocial behavior. In a first, cross-cultural study, we examined maternal scaffolding during task assignment in a German sample ( n = 68) and a Japanese sample ( n = 87) when infants were 10 and 16 months old. We identified that culture-specific scaffolding-deliberate scaffolding in Germany and sensitive scaffolding in Japan-e…
Shared Knowledge in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI)
According to the Theory of Natural Pedagogy, object-directed emotion may provide different information depending on the context: in a communicative context, the information conveys culturally shared knowledge regarding the emotional valence of an object and is generalizable to other individuals, whereas, in a non-communicative context, information is interpreted as a subjective disposition of the person expressing the emotion, i.e., personal pref…
Mealtime conversations between parents and their 2-year-old children in five cultural contexts
Children all over the world learn language, yet the contexts in which they do so vary substantially. This variation needs to be systematically quantified to build robust and generalizable theories of language acquisition. We compared communicative interactions between parents and their 2-year-old children ( N = 99 families) during mealtime across five cultural settings (Brazil, Ecuador, Argentina, Germany, and Japan) and coded the amount of talk …
Infants’ Prediction of Humanoid Robot’s Goal-Directed Action
Several studies have shown that infants anticipate human goal-directed actions, but not robot’s ones. However, the studies focusing on the robot goal-directed actions have mainly analyzed the effect of mechanical arms on infant’s attention. To date, the prediction of goal-directed actions in infants has not yet been studied when the agent is a humanoid robot. Given this lack of evidence in infancy research, the present study aims at analyzing inf…
Parental teaching behavior in diverse cultural contexts
Cultural Similarities and Differences in Explaining Others’ Behavior in 4- to 9-Year-Old Children From Three Cultural Contexts
Previous studies suggest that people from the Western hemisphere tend to explain others’ behavior based on a person’s traits and dispositions, while participants from non-Western cultural settings more likely refer to situational factors. From a developmental perspective, it has been suggested that culture-specific modes of explaining behavior gradually emerge during late childhood and adolescence. The present study explored whether traces of a c…
Great apes’ understanding of biomechanics
Development of synchrony‐dominant expectations in observers
Movement synchrony is an essential feature of rituals and collective displays around the world. Previous studies have shown that synchronous movements increase observers’ perceived group entitativity and fighting capacity in agonistic contexts; however, little is known about the developmental roots of synchrony‐dominant attributions. In this study, adult participants (Exp 1), 5‐ to 6‐year‐old children (Exp 2) and 7‐ to 8‐year‐old children (Exp 3)…
Preschoolers' and adults' animism tendencies toward a humanoid robot
Ostension affects infant learning more than attention
It Does Not Matter Who You Are
Metacognition and mindreading in young children
Prior studies document cross cultural variation in the developmental onset of mindreading. In particular, Japanese children are reported to pass a standard false belief task later than children from Western countries. By contrast, we know little about cross-cultural variation in young children's metacognitive abilities. Moreover, one prominent theoretical discussion in developmental psychology focuses on the relation between metacognition and min…
Quantifying Sources of Variability in Infancy Research Using the Infant-Directed-Speech Preference
Psychological scientists have become increasingly concerned with issues related to methodology and replicability, and infancy researchers in particular face specific challenges related to replicability: For example, high-powered studies are difficult to conduct, testing conditions vary across labs, and different labs have access to different infant populations. Addressing these concerns, we report on a large-scale, multisite study aimed at (a) as…
A Robot Is Not Worth Another
Recent technological developments in robotics has driven the design and production of different humanoid robots. Several studies have highlighted that the presence of human-like physical features could lead both adults and children to anthropomorphize the robots. In the present study we aimed to compare the attribution of mental states to two humanoid robots, NAO and Robovie, which differed in the degree of anthropomorphism. Children aged 5, 7, a…
Causal Information Over Facial Expression
Sensitivity to register selection errors amongst 5- and 7-year-old children
We are expected to behave appropriately to suit social situations. One form of behavioral control is the selection of a linguistic register that is appropriate to the listener. Register selection errors can sometimes be interpreted as rude behavior and result in having a bad influence on the relationship with the listener and the evaluation by other people. Previous studies have demonstrated that children begin to show sensitivity to registers fr…
Selective learning and teaching among Japanese and German children
Despite an increasing number of studies demonstrating that young children selectively learn from others, and a few studies of children's selective teaching, the evidence almost exclusively comes from Western cultures, and cross-cultural comparison in this line of work is very rare. In the present research, we investigated Japanese and German children's selective learning and teaching abilities. We found clear cultural differences. Japanese childr…
Learning From Others
Humans are unique in their propensity to intentionally instruct and subsequently learn a wide range of information from others. We investigated when and how young children become socially resourceful in using others' expertise, and whether the early propensity to request for help varies across diverse societies. We tested and compared 44 two- to four-year-old children growing up in urban United States and Japan, and rural Canada. Children were fa…
Japanese and American children’s moral evaluations of reporting on transgressions
American and Japanese children's evaluations of the reporting of peers' transgressions to authority figures were investigated. Seven-, 9-, and 11-year-old children (N = 160) and adults (N = 62) were presented with vignettes and were asked to evaluate the decisions of child observers who reported their friend's either major or relatively minor transgression to a teacher. The results showed that, in both countries, participants across all age group…
Influence of Maternal Social Communication on Ticklishness in Infants
The tickle sensation is considered to arise from physiological and social factors. Previous research reports that although infants laugh in response to tactile stimulation in first 6 months of life, they cease laughing to this stimulation as they grow. Because older children often appear to laugh in response to tickling, the current study focused on relationships between infants’ response to tickling and social factors as they grow. Specifically,…
Differences in Response Bias Among Younger and Older Preschoolers
Groups of children in Japan and Hungary aged 2 to 5 years were asked yes-no questions pertaining to familiar and unfamiliar objects by either strange adults or mothers. In Experiment 1, 3- to 5-year-old Japanese and Hungarian children were interviewed by strange adults, and 3-year-olds in both countries exhibited a yes bias for familiar objects. Japanese 3-year-olds exhibited a yes bias for unfamiliar objects as well. Japanese 4- and 5-year-olds …
A Robot Is Not Worth Another
Recent technological developments in robotics has driven the design and production of different humanoid robots. Several studies have highlighted that the presence of human-like physical features could lead both adults and children to anthropomorphize the robots. In the present study we aimed to compare the attribution of mental states to two humanoid robots, NAO and Robovie, which differed in the degree of anthropomorphism. Children aged 5, 7, a…
Assessing Human Likeness by Eye Contact in an Android Testbed
The development of robots that closely resemble human beings enables us to investigate many phenomena related to human interactions that could not otherwise be investigated with mechanical-looking robots.This is because more humanlike devices are in a better position to elicit the kinds of responses people direct at each other.In particular, we cannot ignore the role of appearance in giving us a subjective impression of social presence or intelli…
Preschoolers' and adults' animism tendencies toward a humanoid robot
Japanese and American children’s moral evaluations of reporting on transgressions
American and Japanese children's evaluations of the reporting of peers' transgressions to authority figures were investigated. Seven-, 9-, and 11-year-old children (N = 160) and adults (N = 62) were presented with vignettes and were asked to evaluate the decisions of child observers who reported their friend's either major or relatively minor transgression to a teacher. The results showed that, in both countries, participants across all age group…
Japanese and American Children's Reasoning about Accepting Credit for Prosocial Behavior
Children's reasoning about the appropriateness of accepting credit for one's own prosocial behavior was examined. Participants aged 7 to 11 years old in Japan and the United States (total N = 206) were presented with a series of stories in which a protagonist performs a good deed and is asked about it by another character. Across stories, the protagonist either truthfully acknowledges the deed or falsely denies it, in a statement that is made eit…
Origins of the Social Mind
Gaze Display When Thinking Depends on Culture and Context
In three experiments, the roles of culture and social factors in individual's eye gaze displays when thinking were examined. Canadian and Japanese participants answered questions requiring thinking to derive the answers in social and nonsocial contexts. Canadian participants looked up when thinking but only when they were aware of being observed. They looked down when they knew they could not be seen. In contrast, Japanese participants looked dow…
Cultural Display Rules Drive Eye Gaze During Thinking
The authors measured the eye gaze displays of Canadian, Trinidadian, and Japanese participants as they answered questions for which they either knew, or had to derive, the answers. When they knew the answers, Trinidadians maintained the most eye contact, whereas Japanese maintained the least. When thinking about the answers to questions, Canadians and Trinidadians looked up, whereas Japanese looked down. Thus, for humans, gaze displays while thin…
Mealtime conversations between parents and their 2-year-old children in five cultural contexts
Children all over the world learn language, yet the contexts in which they do so vary substantially. This variation needs to be systematically quantified to build robust and generalizable theories of language acquisition. We compared communicative interactions between parents and their 2-year-old children ( N = 99 families) during mealtime across five cultural settings (Brazil, Ecuador, Argentina, Germany, and Japan) and coded the amount of talk …
Recognition of Line-Drawing Representations by a Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes)
The ability of a chimpanzee to recognize individuals portrayed in line drawings was evaluated. A 12-year-old female chimpanzee with extensive prior experience in the use of visual symbols matched the line drawings of chimpanzees, humans, and an orangutan with a specific letter of the alphabet. When a line drawing of a familiar individual was presented on the computer screen, the chimpanzee responded by punching a key with the letter of the alphab…
Development of synchrony‐dominant expectations in observers
Movement synchrony is an essential feature of rituals and collective displays around the world. Previous studies have shown that synchronous movements increase observers’ perceived group entitativity and fighting capacity in agonistic contexts; however, little is known about the developmental roots of synchrony‐dominant attributions. In this study, adult participants (Exp 1), 5‐ to 6‐year‐old children (Exp 2) and 7‐ to 8‐year‐old children (Exp 3)…
Selective learning and teaching among Japanese and German children
Despite an increasing number of studies demonstrating that young children selectively learn from others, and a few studies of children's selective teaching, the evidence almost exclusively comes from Western cultures, and cross-cultural comparison in this line of work is very rare. In the present research, we investigated Japanese and German children's selective learning and teaching abilities. We found clear cultural differences. Japanese childr…
Learning From Others
Humans are unique in their propensity to intentionally instruct and subsequently learn a wide range of information from others. We investigated when and how young children become socially resourceful in using others' expertise, and whether the early propensity to request for help varies across diverse societies. We tested and compared 44 two- to four-year-old children growing up in urban United States and Japan, and rural Canada. Children were fa…
Differences in Response Bias Among Younger and Older Preschoolers
Groups of children in Japan and Hungary aged 2 to 5 years were asked yes-no questions pertaining to familiar and unfamiliar objects by either strange adults or mothers. In Experiment 1, 3- to 5-year-old Japanese and Hungarian children were interviewed by strange adults, and 3-year-olds in both countries exhibited a yes bias for familiar objects. Japanese 3-year-olds exhibited a yes bias for unfamiliar objects as well. Japanese 4- and 5-year-olds …
Mirror guided behavior in Japanese monkeys (Macaca fuscata fuscata)
Use of a mirror to direct their responses in Japanese monkeys (Macaca fuscata fuscata)
Symbolic Association Between Individuals and Objects by a Chimpanzee as an Initiation of Ownership
A chimpanzee, named Ai, received feeding training with two other apes. Ai was always fed with the green bowl; the other two apes were fed with different colored bowls. After this training, Ai could make symbolic associations between objects and individuals by using an artificial visual language, based only on her observation of bowls used in feeding without specific training
Recognition of Line-Drawing Representations by a Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes)
The ability of a chimpanzee to recognize individuals portrayed in line drawings was evaluated. A 12-year-old female chimpanzee with extensive prior experience in the use of visual symbols matched the line drawings of chimpanzees, humans, and an orangutan with a specific letter of the alphabet. When a line drawing of a familiar individual was presented on the computer screen, the chimpanzee responded by punching a key with the letter of the alphab…
Cutaneous Pattern Perception on Foreheads in 3- and 4-Year-Old Children
In the present study, we investigated how 3- and 4-year-old children perceived mirror-image stimuli traced on their foreheads. First, the subjects were taught matching-to-sample tasks with symmetrically shaped and asymmetrically shaped figures (called mirror-image stimuli) on cards. Then the subjects were taught cutaneous perception of a figure traced by the experimenter's finger on the forehead. Last, the subjects were tested with mirror-image s…
An exploratory study of gaze‐monitoring in nonhuman primates 1
Eleven species of nonhuman primate were tested in a gaze‐monitoring task to examine whether they would look where the experimenter looked or pointed. Chimpanzees and an orangutan showed higher correct‐response rates than other species. A high correlation was found between correct responses on the gaze‐monitoring task and the length of time that the subject continuously concentrated on the experiment
Mutual Exclusivity and Taxonomic Bias in Combination Lead Preschoolers' Word Learning
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Use of experimenter‐given directional cues by a young white‐handed gibbon ( Hylobates lar ) 1
A three‐year‐old white‐handed gibbon ( Hylobates lar ) was tested in terms of her ability to follow experimenter‐given directional cues in an object‐choice task. Four conditions were run: the experimenter baited one of two cups and then gave one of the following four directional cues: (a) pointing at the baited cup from a short distance (5 cm); (b) pointing at the target from a long distance (20 cm); (c) orienting body, head, and eyes toward the …
Gaze‐following and joint visual attention in nonhuman animals
In this paper, studies of gaze‐following and joint visual attention in nonhuman animals are reviewed from the theoretical perspective of Emery (2000 ). There are many studies of gaze‐following and joint visual attention in nonhuman primates. The reports concern not only adult individuals but also the development of these abilities. Studies to date suggest that monkeys and apes are able to follow the gaze of others, but only apes can understand th…
Effect of Conflicting and No Conflicting Cues on a Rule-Switching Task
This study investigated effects of stimuli in the dimensional change card-sorting task (DCCS task) of Zelazo and colleagues. There is evidence that young preschoolers' difficulty on this task is caused by conflicting first-phase cues for the target cards, but these findings have not been replicated. We examined whether conflicting first-phase cues for the target cards caused young children's (N=44, M=43.3 mo., SD=2.5) perseveration errors. In the…
Assessing Human Likeness by Eye Contact in an Android Testbed
The development of robots that closely resemble human beings enables us to investigate many phenomena related to human interactions that could not otherwise be investigated with mechanical-looking robots.This is because more humanlike devices are in a better position to elicit the kinds of responses people direct at each other.In particular, we cannot ignore the role of appearance in giving us a subjective impression of social presence or intelli…
Cultural Display Rules Drive Eye Gaze During Thinking
The authors measured the eye gaze displays of Canadian, Trinidadian, and Japanese participants as they answered questions for which they either knew, or had to derive, the answers. When they knew the answers, Trinidadians maintained the most eye contact, whereas Japanese maintained the least. When thinking about the answers to questions, Canadians and Trinidadians looked up, whereas Japanese looked down. Thus, for humans, gaze displays while thin…
Do Japanese children say `yes' to their mothers? A naturalistic study of response bias in parent-toddler conversations
This study investigated the situations in which children say `yes' in response to yes-no questions. Japanese-speaking children aged 2;0—3;11 ( N=38) were asked yes-no questions by their own mothers at home. Children showed a strong yes bias. The results, combined with those of earlier studies, suggest that a yes bias is a general phenomenon. In addition, young Japanese children showed Japanese-specific response tendencies
Young children's yes bias
The aim of the present study was to investigate how young children reduce a yes bias, the tendency to answer `yes' to yes-no questions. Specifically, we examined three possible factors: verbal ability, inhibitory control and theory of mind. Results revealed that verbal ability and inhibitory control were strongly associated with a yes bias even after controlling for age. Regression analyses revealed that these two factors significantly predicted …
Young children's difficulty with inhibitory control in a social context 1
The authors’ prior research has documented that young children's behaviors in the Dimensional Change Card Sorting (DCCS) task can be influenced by their observation of another person performing the task and has suggested that young children committed perseverative errors in a social context. The present study explored whether children who committed perseverative errors in the social context also committed perseverative errors in the standard DCCS…
How to Build an Intentional Android
This study examined whether young children are able to imitate a robot's goal‐directed actions. Children (24–35 months old) viewed videos showing a robot attempting to manipulate an object (e.g., putting beads inside a cup) but failing to achieve its goal (e.g., beads fell outside the cup). In 1 video, the robot made eye contact with a human before and after it failed the action. In another video, the robot did not make eye contact with the human…
One-Month-Old Infants' Sensitivity to Social Contingency from Mothers and Strangers
Whether 1-mo.-old infants were sensitive to social contingency of their mothers and strangers via a Double Video live-replay paradigm was studied. 8 infants were tested (M age = 45.4 days, SD = 7.4) to compare behavioral changes across conditions: a first contingency (Live 1), a noncontingent (Replay), and a second contingency (Live 2). Infants showed an increase in gaze during Replay, counter to expectation. Also, these infants could detect moth…
Origins of the Social Mind
Gaze Display When Thinking Depends on Culture and Context
In three experiments, the roles of culture and social factors in individual's eye gaze displays when thinking were examined. Canadian and Japanese participants answered questions requiring thinking to derive the answers in social and nonsocial contexts. Canadian participants looked up when thinking but only when they were aware of being observed. They looked down when they knew they could not be seen. In contrast, Japanese participants looked dow…
Development of Infants' Request Expressions from 11 to 15 Months
Between 10 and 15 months of age, infants seem to become increasingly communicative. The focus of this study was changes in request behavior among infants at ages 11, 13, and 15 months ( N = 22) in a longitudinal design. Changes in durations and frequencies of four different modes of behavior were examined, namely, use of hands, eye gaze, facial expression, and vocalization. Both frequencies and durations of the behaviors expressing requests incre…
An Integrated View of Empathy
Do bilingual children exhibit a yes bias to yes-no questions? Relationship between children’s yes bias and verbal ability
The present study investigated whether bilingual children show a yes bias to yes-no questions. Japanese—French bilingual children, aged 2 to 5 years, were asked yes-no questions pertaining to objects’ properties and functions. At the same time, their verbal ability was tested. The children showed a strong yes bias regardless of their chronological age. The children were then divided into two verbal ability groups (higher and lower), and we found …
The link between perception and action in early infancy
The ability to understand the actions of others is crucial for all social species. Recent electrophysiological and neuroimaging studies indicate that understanding the actions of others is mediated by the mirror neuron system (MNS), in which an observed action is mapped onto the observer's own motor representation of that action. Although there has been considerable progress in elucidating the mechanisms and functions of the direct‐matching proce…
Language and Cognitive Shifting
The relationship between language and cognitive shifting in young children was examined. Specifically, second language experiences from infancy as well as individual differences in monolingual language experience may affect performances on the Dimensional Change Card Sort Task. 54 Japanese-French bilingual children and two groups of Japanese monolingual children participated (ns = 18). One monolingual group was matched to the bilingual group on v…
Language and Cognitive Shifting
The relationship between language and cognitive shifting in young children was examined. Specifically, second language experiences from infancy as well as individual differences in monolingual language experience may affect performances on the Dimensional Change Card Sort Task. 54 Japanese-French bilingual children and two groups of Japanese monolingual children participated (ns = 18). One monolingual group was matched to the bilingual group on v…
Psychology (49 works) · Developmental psychology (37 works) · Child and Animal Learning Development (35 works) · Cognitive psychology (26 works) · Social Psychology (19 works) · Computer Science (18 works) · Communication (14 works) · Social Psychology (13 works) · Artificial Intelligence (12 works) · Cognition (12 works)