The purpose of this research is to construct a model of how human beings harmonize with the material world and learn embodied skills in a way that makes good use of physical laws. Taking swimming as an example, I analyze the process in which I, who is a beginner of swimming, have acquired the relationship between physical moves and water, in which my coach, using words and physical demonstrations, has taught me how to manipulate water. Finally, I have reached a model on learning embodied skills which consists of the relationship between representations by words, somatic sensations, physical moves and the laws of the material world, found in the first-person's views of myself as a learner and the second-person's views of myself and the coach to the thoughts and somatic sensations of each other.

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This paper is an attempt by the author, an ecological psychologist, who has developed depression since 2016 and been still fighting the disease, to describe in detail the situation of own depression ．In this paper, the following contents are described concretely from the first-person perspective. — How to manifest specific symptoms of the author's own disease. The perception of the world that the author actually experienced．The relationship between the author and the world around it．Some causes that may have caused depression in the author. How to reduce the symptoms of depression as much as possible. — The memos, scribbles, and the author's own memory are used to describe the items listed here. The people referred to in the discussion of this paper are Gibson, J. J. (ecological psychology), Bin Kimura (psychopathology), Shozo Omori (philosophy), Shigeo Miki (Anatomy), J. Turrell (contemporary art).

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Satoshi Fukushima (Fukushima) is a deafblind man who lost his sight when he was 9 years old, and then his hearing at 18.He uses finger braille to communicate with hearing and sighted interlocutors and this study examines how Fukushima connects with the world based on analyses of data from an interpreter-mediated dialogue with the first author (Bono),which was video-recorded in 2015. Our analysis focuses on two key queries: (1) How did Fukushima ask a question of the interviewer via his interpreters, including questions that are related to the concept of other-initiated repair (Schegloff et al., 1977); (2) During the conversation, how did Fukushima's questions differ depending on the state of his knowledge about a given topic, which is related to the concept of epistemics in action (Heritage, 2012a, 2012b). The concluding discussion will be sharpened through a reflective dialogue between Bono and Fukushima, which was video-recorded in 2019. In addition, in previous studies employing conversation analysis (CA) and interaction studies, researchers have tended to avoid participating in their own data in order to prevent potential bias in their analysis. However, this paper suggests that interactional analysts should not stay away from engaging with actual actors in the real world and may be able to provide valuable perspectives, especially due to their careful awareness and observations of actions. As such, this paper aims to help bridge the divide between CA/interaction studies and Tojisha studies.

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The purpose of this study is to clarify what kind of value mothers place on the picture book reading. After observing a mother-child interaction in picture book reading, we conducted semi-structured interview for mothers who have their child aged in 20 to 26 months. The results from the interview showed that the mothers place on the three values of picture book reading based on their child's reactions. These are : 1) “Values related to child development and growth” such as promoting and understanding child development and growth, 2) “Values related to their child here and now”that children here are in positive state, 3) “Values related to mothers themselves” such as that mothers are satisfied with the reaction of their child. Moreover, the results showed that reading picture book with children has not only merit for children, such as promoting child development, mothers find value for themselves. These findings suggested that mothers who read picture books adjusted their behavior for children to increase these values, which in turn encouraged children to develop.

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This paper aims to reveal the various aspects which emerge when the children explore their own body movements while participating in a cultural practice so called “zoukingake”. Zoukingake is an act of cleaning floor by wiping it using a cloth held down with both hands, where the actor moves him/herself towards a desired direction by walking or running with their legs. I observed a kindergarten class with 3-year-old children and analyzed the relationship among the children's bodies, the pieces of cloth they used, and the floor. Based on my observation, I described that children had changed their ways to wipe to various ways to do, and they explored their movements that lost their bodily balance, while trying to keep their posture stable. Also, during cleaning with the cloth, “zoukin”, the children worked actively to understand the characteristics of the cloth, by deforming its shape. Furthermore, the children performed zoukingake better after observing the movements of others in the interaction process. The process of participation through their exploratory movements,which dynamically changed according to the situation, elucidates some aspects of the “knowledge” of children, which was created in their kindergarten life.

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The purpose of this research is learning design and practice for childcare practitioners in a nursing site. Specifically, we describe ourselves as childcare practitioners the process that we find the state which children learn and develop from everyday childcare practice, we each reflect and describe the state, and we design and do the childcare reflection which we discuss the state. We suggest taking pictures by the viewpoint of children under the age of one to take in a first-person viewpoint of them, and to think deeply meanings of the actions and reactions vividly. This method of the taking pictures and describing by a second-person approach enables to share reflection of each practitioner by every childcare staffs and to learn new viewpoints from others. Thereby, we understand meanings them to avoid being self-opinionated. In this paper, we show two examples which the practitioner in charge for children under the age of one takes pictures of children's action, and describing the process in a childcare center. One is scene a five months old child is surprised and excited at impressive sight (many headbands at suspended from the ceiling) he never has seen. The other is scene an eleven months child gets over an entrance mat (having many rubber points on the surface of the mat) as difficulty of sense of touch for him. We considerate ability and possibility of children under the age of one, and childcare skill based on the interaction in sharing reflections.

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We propose a method to visualize a design process as a “narrative” from the designer's point of view to describe how to design. The principal aim of this study is to discuss how to describe what knowledge, skill, attitude and passion, etc.,are necessary for design. First, we analyzed previous studies of visualizing design processes. Based on this analysis, we have implemented a description method. Second, we drew some sketches in a practice. After the practice, we organized the sketches, and described what we saw, what we thought, what we understood, and what we did not understand. In this paper, we try to describe the process of our design project. Since we have been practicing design at a company that produces Japanese packaging, the project's theme was to make a new method of computing the cost of this packaging. By visualizing the design process, we describe design strategies such as how to get an idea, to generate visions with partners,to brush up an idea. This study shows an approach to describe design strategies from a narrative perspective.

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Cognitive scientists have interpreted the world in various ways. However, they can also change it through a myriad of ways, including practice research. This article focuses on the practice research methodology. The purpose of this study is twofold. First, we redefine “betterment” in practice research. In this context, betterment refers to the purpose of a practice,which is usually obvious. However, this definition does not always accurately characterize betterment. If this is the case,what then is betterment? Hence, we aim to redefine the concept. Second, we aim to extend the knowledge of practice researchers' roles. Though there are many studies on this topic, additional research is still needed for clarification purposes. We adopted an ethnographic approach and held science cafés events where apprentice scientists and citizens can exchange ideas and information from 2013 to 2016. The purpose of these events was to offer citizens a chance to learn. The events were practice research to examine participants' learning. This is, however, not the focus of this article. We examine the characters of practice research itself in this article, and collected relevant field data. In analyzing the data, we focused on changes of betterment in the science cafés events, and role of practice researchers. There were two major findings. First, betterment develops in the process of practice research. For example, a new purpose was added to our events. This purpose was to offer citizens who otherwise would not have met a chance to communicate with each other. We came to understand that our science cafés events held significance we were previously unaware of. The purpose of the science cafés events changed as we gained experience in practice research. In light of this, we can define betterment as a purpose of practice, which develops during the practice research process. Second, practice researchers become medium of research articles themselves and develop their recognition of practices. This new recognition contributes to their understanding of the practices. This important role enables practice researchers to write research articles using their own experiences and recognition changes.

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 Architectural design involves unique processes known as “study processes” or “esquisses” that are frequently used by architects to make prototypes and develop design proposals. It is an established fact that these repetitive processes are prevalent in creative human endeavors, such as design activities, and the subject of research in the fields of cognitive science or design studies (Finke, Ward, & Smith, 1992). This study examined the relationship between the design processes and the generation of intentions in designing activities via the detailed observation of architectural design processes, as well as conducted interviews with architects. One design case was analyzed using a qualitative approach. First, the original diagrams were drawn up. These diagrams plot “sub-operations” (small-scale creative changes to the form of plans or elevations) and show the relationship between sub-operations and the overall design process. Second, the main features of the designing intentions were established following interviews with several architects. Third, the relationship between the characteristics of the overall design process and the designing intentions was clarified and confirmed. The results are summarized in the following five points: 1) designing intentions evolved as a function of design activities; 2) the multilayered design process involved multiple sub-operations; 3) some of these multiple sub-operations seemed to develop as higher-order operations (i.e., involving multiple other sub-operations); 4) these higher-order operations tended to generate designing intentions; and 5) the sub-operations forming designing intentions displayed not only higher-order characteristics but also a sense of unity or an ease of handling within the design activities, enabling architects to work creatively. These five results show that designing intentions have complex features, and while they may involve single and higherorder design activities, they are founded on multiple design decisions. These considerations allow for designing intentions to be understood from an ecological perspective (Gibson, 1979/1986).

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In our recent essay [Tsuchiya, N. & Saigo, H. (2019). Understanding consciousness through category theory, Cognitive Studies: Bulletin of the Japanese Cognitive Science Society, 26, 462–477], we provided a general introduction of category theory to consciousness researchers. Further, we also provided our tentative theoretical sketches on our latest ideas on how to apply tools in category theory into consciousness research. In particular, we discussed how we can propose categories of level of consciousness and categories of contents of consciousness. We also speculated what (if any) these efforts will bring into consciousness research. In this short piece, we will address several comments we received on our essay in the same issue from six experts, providing some clarification on three issues: 1) significance of our proposal of a novel viewpoint to enrich what it means to define consciousness, 2) possibility of category theoretical interpretation of consciousness,and 3) understanding of consciousness through the enriched category theoretical framework.

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[in Japanese]

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