According to the theory of predictive processing, the brain is not a passive organ that solely responds to input signals from sensory organs. Rather, it actively constructs perception based on internal models that predict future input signals and compute differences between predictions and input signals (prediction error). Organisms, including humans, construct and maintain integrated and consistent images of the self and the world by minimizing the sum of prediction errors. They either update their internal models or actively modulate sensory inputs by changing behaviors. This article introduces basic predictive processing concepts and examines how predictive processing conceptualizes mental functions such as perception, motor movement, decision-making, and affect as integrated systems. Recent empirical findings supporting this theoretical framework are presented. This article also discusses how the predictive processing framework uses computation to explain how subjective mental experiences are generated.

Infants, even before the age of two, believe that rewards should be distributed according to an agent’s workload. However, it is difficult to understand how infants attribute these differences in workload. This study aims to clarify whether infants expect rewards to be similarly distributed to a robot as to a human. In the present study, 21-month-old infants (n = 18) were presented with the following situations: 1) two humans performed similar tasks and received the same reward; 2) a human and robot performed similar tasks and received the same reward. Subsequently, their gazing durations were compared. The results showed a significant increase in gazing time when the robot received rewards. This suggests that 21-month-olds predicted that rewards would not be distributed to the robot. Finally, based on the findings, the psychological challenges of living with a robot are discussed.

Psychological and sociological research have suggested that the presence of an agent is not solely determined by the individual’s characteristics, but also defined by the social network in which the agent belongs. However, current artificial agents have limited ability to build and belong to agent-specific social networks. In this study, we used a stuffed animal as an artificial agent and investigated how the owner’s attitude toward the stuffed animal changed, when the owner was presented with a scene where the stuffed animal’s avatar interacted with avatars of other stuffed animals. While no significant changes were observed through subjective measurements, the results showed that the owner’s photograph of their stuffed animal transformed into one that “seems to be loved” by the owner, as perceived by third parties. This result suggests that displaying the social network of an artificial agent to the owner can enhance the agent’s social presence on an unconscious level.

Social Particle Swarm (SPS) is a new model for understanding the dynamics between social behavior, based on game theory, and social relationships, based on self-driven particles. SPS represents individuals as moving particles with states (cooperate or defect) to capture continuity in social interactions. Each particle moves in a two-dimensional space based on the game-theoretic payoff obtained from social interactions, which corresponds to changes in social relationships, and influences subsequent social interactions. Simulations reveal interesting cyclic dynamics, consisting of three phases: formation of cooperative clusters, invasion by defectors, and cluster collapse through explosive dynamics. We considered that the cyclic dynamics reflects a dynamic aspect inherent in social relationships, and studied these dynamics using both simulations and experiments with human participants. This paper presents a detailed analysis of the dynamics, focusing on its mechanism and occurrence conditions, to acquire insights for understanding real social relationship dynamics.

COVID-19 studies reveal negative correlations between computer-mediated communication and well-being, highlighting the role of face-to-face interaction in understanding human behavior. We present an IoT-based framework for studying face-to-face interactions in which participants use microcomputers to interact via Bluetooth signals that represent their social closeness. Participants adjust their interaction strategy in real time via a button on the device, which is displayed on the screen along with the accumulated score. We simulated a situation similar to the Social Particle Swarm model and its online (web-based) experimental variant, where formation and collapse of cooperative clusters emerged. This paper presents a framework and validates its performance through three experiments: one focused on capturing social relationship dynamics, the second comparing behavioral patterns between face-to-face and web-based conditions, and the final experiment testing the framework with a larger group. Implications for the importance of information visibility of others for active and cooperative social dynamics will be discussed.

This study purported to reconsider the role of top-down processing in Cubist paintings. We especially examined the role that Pablo Picasso’s drawings of human body proportions played in his Cubist experimentation. The diagram for the theory of human proportion is an intellectual tool traditionally used in drawing to provide a geometric basis for observation. It serves as a kind of internal model for top-down processing and also as a reference for modifying bottom-up information, to make it conform to an ideal figure or typical image. After clarifying the theoretical scope of this diagram, this study analyzed the drawings of human body proportions made by Pablo Picasso in 1907, and its creative application to Cubist works. Picasso’s use of the diagram of proportion not only disrupts traditional bottom-up information processing, but also problematizes traditional top-down information processing. The final section of this paper further discusses how such problematization of top-down processing is tied to Cubism’s question regarding the perception of reality. In doing so, we reconsider the ways in which abstract schemes that appear in Cubist works create a new dialogue with the sense of reality in a relativist instead of universalist manner.

This article examines the concepts of expectation and surprise in the work of Paul Valéry, a French poet and critic. Valéry’s key idea is that “expectation and surprise” are a complementary pair of notions, and his reflections on “basic expectation” share some similarity with current neuroscientific perspectives on prediction. His theoretical considerations in Cahiers are inseparable from his poetics, and Valéry regards the composition of verse as “the creation of expectation.” While exploring his conception of poetry, we highlight the characteristics of Valéry’s “paradoxical surprise” by comparing it to Surrealist surprise. Finally, we focus on several poems from Valéry’s Charmes to analyze how expectations and surprises are created in poetic composition. This study shows that Valéry’s conception of a poem as an oscillation “between sound and sense” is associated with his view of expectation as “neither body nor mind but both of them together.”

According to the “prediction processing theory” in cognitive neuroscience, the human brain represents information by minimizing prediction errors through continuous model updates. However, it remains unclear how such cognitive features can be quantitatively captured within the realm of literary creative activities. In this study, we examined whether the contemporary Japanese novelist, Minae Mizumura, achieved her goal of creating modern literature. Comparative analysis was conducted by utilizing a diachronic corpus of modern Japanese novels. It was found that Mizumura’s novel The Light and Dark Continues, which she consciously wrote in the style of the novelist Soseki Natsume, closely aligns with her ideal of modern literature. Conversely, her subsequent works exhibit different tendencies. The results provide evidence that Mizumura intentionally employs the means of transformation to adapt to changes in the era and meet reader demands while inheriting the legacy of modern literature.

This study investigates the influence of cultural and societal trends during the Taisho and Showa periods on the works of Edogawa Rampo, a renowned Japanese entertainment novelist. Through quantitative analysis of Rampo’s works, this study examined their key characteristics and stylistic changes over time. The results showed a significant difference in the importance of words in each work before and after World War II. Furthermore, four distinct styles of Rampo’s works were identified, indicating a tendency for changes in style from eccentricity, monstrosity, and gloominess before the war to aestheticism after the war. Overall, this study highlights the impact of historical and cultural contexts on the artistic expression of Rampo’s works.

This paper clarifies characteristics of the discourse elaborated by Philipp Etter, a conservative Swiss Catholic politician, using his speeches from the 1930s. During 1933 to 1939, Etter, a State Councilor from the canton of Zug, was elected to Federal Councilor and eventually declared Switzerland’s transition to general mobilization as Federal President. This coincided with the period when Nazi Germany seized power and precipitated World War II. Most scholars have viewed Etter negatively as a Catholic conservative who sought to transform Switzerland into an authoritarian corporatist state that bordered on totalitarianism. This paper sheds light on Etter’s thoughts by using text-mining methods to objectively identify the arrangement of key terms in Etter’s speeches from the 1930s, while remaining unbiased regarding the ideology of the research subject. The analysis shows that Etter transformed from an authoritarian conservative to a defender of Swiss specificity within the framework of consensus democracy.

Marx (1966, 1967) regarded Freud’s study on aphasia (1891/1978) as a node between theories developed by linguistics and neuroscience. This article demonstrates that Freud’s model of thought can be reformulated using terminologies from modern neurocognitive science and substantiated by findings from qualitative and quantitative analyses. First, this article reinterprets Freud’s “Project for a Scientific Psychology” (1895/1950) regarding several theories proposed in cognitive neuroscience. Then, this article analyzes Freud’s important works using text mining techniques (especially structural topic model) to reveal how Freud’s thought has progressed over time. The force of delay and its effect (latency), for Freud, continued to be essential to the origin of memory until his final essay Moses and Monotheism in 1939 (Derrida, 1966/1967). Comparisons of Freud’s concepts with neurocognitive scientific terms proved that “Project” can serve as a significant reference point for recent neuroscientific emotion theories.