Participants performed an association-learning task between colors and geometric figures. In the explicit presentation condition, the color and the figure were fully visible. In the implicit presentation condition, a continuous flash suppression technique was used so that the pairs were not consciously visible. After the learning procedure was complete, participants performed a two-alternative, forced-choice task in which they were to choose the learned pairs. In one-third of the trials, unlearned pairs were presented (the non-presentation condition). During the choice task, participant's eye movements were monitored. Results indicated that in all three conditions, there was a gaze bias toward the chosen pair prior to the response (gaze cascade effect, e.g., Shimojo, Simion, Shimojo, & Scheier, 2003). The gaze bias in the implicit presentation condition was higher than in the non-presentation condition. Moreover, the gaze bias started earlier in the implicit presentation condition than in the other conditions. These results supported the hypothesis that the gaze cascade effect reflects the process by which implicit information is used in making conscious decisions. Possible mechanisms of the gaze cascade effect are discussed.

We showed how conscious mind works on the social brain which controls the multiple intentional mind. Our current model assumed the cognitive and social brain network make the social consciousness working together. Specifically, working-memory-based and default-mode-based brain networks make social mind by contrasting self and other's mind under cognitive coordination and competition. We discussed this brain mechanism in terms of recursive function of the self awareness.

In our daily lives, we feel pleasure when we eat and/or drink something palatable. During eating and drinking, we experience the sense of taste. The thought that the sense of taste is emerged in our oral cavity, especially in our tongue, is not true. The sense of taste is highly multimodal perception, and is based on the integration of gustation, olfaction and somatosenses in oral cavity. The sense of taste is also affected by the cognition and the attention. This article focuses good sides of ‘the sense of taste’ as a theme to study organisms' basic psychological mechanisms.

Music often moves us and provides great pleasure. The origins of this ability of music remain a mystery. Recently, an increasing number of studies have proposed evolutionary theories of human musicality, although several researchers deny the adaptive value of music. In this paper, the origins of the pleasure that music provides were discussed in terms of human evolution and cultural adaptation. A possibility in which both evolutionary and cultural adaptation resulted in the pleasure of music was shown. Next, the relationship between music and visual stimuli was focused on. Owing to the development of music devices and the Internet, music is heard increasingly with visual stimuli, like background music in everyday life, films, drama, dance, computer games, music videos, etc. Based on the author's findings on the cross-modal effects between music and visual stimuli, the pleasure of listening to music with visual stimuli was discussed. It was emphasized that the meaning of music is strengthened, changed, and multi-layered by visual stimuli when it is enjoyed with the visual stimuli.

The present paper suggests one of the approaches of cross modal studies by using the concept of color as a node for the perceptions of the senses. Color is consisting of physically stable structures of three dimensions, namely, hue, lightness and saturation. Thus color can be useful to classify other modalities, such as fragrances by their harmonious colors or to visualize the classification of fragrances by means of color. The data obtained from the experiments conducted were analyzed by factor analysis, and mainly two big factors were extracted; MILD and CLEAR. It indicated, to some extent, the harmony between a fragrance and a color based on the dimensions of fragrance impressions. The fMRI study also showed that the activation of OFC (orbitofrontal cortex) in harmonized combination indicated close relationship with the perception of rewarding stimuli.

Research on visual illusions in different animal species as compared to human beings is fruitful to know the adaptive significance of the illusory phenomena. Comparative studies on visual illusions suggest the precedence of global features in adult human visual perception and the precedence of local features in non-human animal visual perception. Similar results are also reported by a developmental study (Doherty, Campbell, Tsuji, & Philips, 2010), suggesting the precedence of local features in human child visual perception. The importance of the comparative work on visual illusions in two perspectives (cross-species and developmental) is discussed.

In this short article, we reviewed out studies about development of perception. At first, we explained the findings about material perception in infants. This study showed that the 3- to 4-month-old infants have a striking ability to discriminate slight image changes due to illumination that are not salient for adults. These young infants lose this ability after 5 months of age and then develop an ability to perceive distal surface properties (glossy or matte) at 7–8 months of age. Second, we discussed the relationship between visual illusion and perceptual development. We defined the concept of “pre-constancy” based on the statements of William James. Finally, we defined the characteristic of visual illusion.

In this paper we discuss two topics of infants' studies. First is typical and atypical development of face processing. There are many studies on the atypical social development, especially infants' development with high risks is current topic in developmental disorders. In these studies under 12 month olds who have an older sibling diagnosed with the disorder were selected for high-risk infants. Many studies have documented that impairments of the face processing was found in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). And recently, abnormal development of a subcortical system originates in the magnocellular pathway of the primate visual system was primary trigger to impairments of higher visual processing. McCleery, Allman, Carver, & Dobkins (2007) reported that contrast sensitivity of the high-risk infants exhibited greater than that of normal infants. Second topic is development of face processing. In these studies we found similarity in the developmental pattern between languages and face processing. Further, we discuss importance for infant's learning faces in poor resolution. Infant's face learning model showed that poor image faces (low-pass faces) made facial learning easily, additionally this low-pass face learning could generalize to process the normal faces. In a sense, infant's poor acuity decreases the information in the face processing during infancy and this promote face learning.

Since the advent of functional magnetic resonance imaging cognitive science has experienced a turn towards neuroscience. Models of perceptual and cognitive functions can now be tested against patterns of human brain activity in anatomically well-defined regions of interest. Structural and functional connectivity analyses can inform us about how different brain regions are interconnected and interact in perceptual and cognitive tasks, as well as during resting states. In this study I review the results of a series of experiments that aimed to reveal the visual-vestibular sensory processing underlying self-motion perception. We (Frank, Baumann, Mattingley, & Greenlee, 2014; Frank, Wirth, & Greenlee, 2016) localized regions in the posterior insula using fMRI with visual and vestibular stimuli. The results suggest that two areas in this part of the brain are involved in self-motion perception: the parieto-insular vestibular cortex (PIVC) for the processing of vestibular information and posterior insular cortex (PIC) for the integration of visual and vestibular information. The results suggest that these two regions play different roles in the integration of visual and vestibular cues related to self-motion perception.

A fundamental challenge in visual psychology and neuroscience is to understand how 2D retinal inputs are reconstructed into a coherent and stable 3D visual world. In this review paper, I will introduce our recent fMRI studies on 3D depth perception in which we investigated 1) how and where in the brain multiple depth cues are integrated, 2) the development of visual 3D cue integration at the level of neural representation, and 3) how the outputs of neurons responding to local and simple elements are progressively transformed to encode the critical features of spatially-extensive objects. Based on those studies, I will discuss on the roles of dorsal visual areas to infer the computational hierarchy that supports the 3D estimation, a property important for recognizing our visual world and planning actions. Furthermore, I would like to discuss how 3D vision psychology/neuroscience studies can contribute to the engineering fields to develop future display devices and information and communication technologies.

Among our senses, there has been considerable interest in the neural mechanisms underlying visual object recognition. By contrast, relatively little is known about the mechanisms underlying the haptic object perception. Here, I review the previous findings of our neuroimaging experiments on haptic object perception and propose the framework of haptic object recognition in terms of hierarchical and parallel distributed processing. I argue that different brain regions beyond the conventional somatosensory cortex are assigned to processing of different object properties, whereas such separately processed object information may be integrated with another cortical network including a node in the high-order visual cortex. Finally, I also discuss critical questions to be addressed for validating and extending this framework.

In this article, we introduce science outreach activities of a committee in the Japanese Psychonomic Society. The committee named as “The JPS committee for developing teaching materials for high school students” started in 2012, aiming at developing interactive teaching materials and media workshops (MWS) for science education, specifically for education of the “brain and mind.” The committee members consist of the researchers of various fields, such as cognitive psychology, engineering education, interaction design, virtual reality and media arts. Media technologies enable us to create teaching materials that are directly linked to the students' experiences. Specifically, using computer graphics technologies, we developed a visualization system called “Face Homunculus Viewer (FHV)” and a face image transformation system called “Accidental Resemblance Generator (ARG).” The usage of the systems in the MWS can provide opportunities for students to gain deeper understanding of their brain and mind, and to learn the methods used in psychological experiments. The committee provided FHV application and documented procedures of the MWS for public, in order to broaden the user of the application, such as teachers at schools and science communicators at science museums. The MWS of ARG was also used for the validity evaluation of face image transformation method. For further development of the MWS we are planning to hold an “ideathon” (idea marathon) of concepts of new teaching materials.

This is a proposal on establishment of Diverse Career Paths for Experimental Psychologists Committee of Japanese Psychonomic Society (JPS). The goal of the activity of this Committee is to investigate and analyze both needs and seeds of experts of experimental psychology in the industry, and to communicate the knowledge concerned within JPS and between other societies.