As the proportion of the population of retirement age or older continues to grow in Japan, several social problems are projected to arise such as the shortage of health and social care resources. Technology such as robots is expected to provide support for elderly individuals with age-related challenges by enhancing their well-being and helping them to live as independently as possible while remaining in their homes. In this article, we organize previous studies on communication robots (also called “social robots”) that are used to support the emotional, cognitive, and physical care of elderly individuals with or without cognitive decline. First, we present various roles of communication robots and their impact on elderly individuals. Second, we present studies regarding the acceptance, needs, and perception of elderly individuals and their informal and formal caregivers on communication robots. We will present some studies that utilized a “user-centered design,” which reflects the voices of the end users, in the process of developing the robots. Finally, we describe several issues in the use and development of communication robots such as safety, ethics, and the autonomy of elderly individuals.

In evaluating facial features, “cuteness” is used as a rating term for infants, whereas “attractiveness” is used for adults. The reason underlying this use is that cuteness has been considered an aspect of attractiveness among infants, as derived from the baby schema, which is deemed to stimulate nurturing behavior. Thus, this study proposes that cuteness can also be an evaluative dimension of adult faces and is distinct from sexual attractiveness. After summarizing the findings on infant cuteness, we review the recent research on adult facial cuteness. We then discuss several research issues related to the cuteness of adult faces. In particular, we highlight that measuring physical/physiological responses may help in elucidating the similarities and differences in cuteness evaluation between adults and infants. Finally, we discuss the possibility that cuteness functions as an indicator of nonsexual social attractiveness among adults.

Extant research has robustly demonstrated over time that social judgment is frequently influenced by motivational and cognitive biases that compromise objectivity in social perceptions. Individuals typically fail to recognize biases in their social judgment, despite substantial evidence. Scholars indicate that this tendency due to naïve realism: people tend to be overconfident about their objectivity and believe that they see the world as it is (Ross & Ward, 1996). As observed, human perception and judgment are frequently biased. The lack of awareness of one’s bias can itself be dubbed “biased perception.” An emerging point of view is that many cognitive errors can support personal, societal, or evolutionary advantages (Haselton & Buss, 2000) and that blindness to one’s bias may be a product or by-product of adaptation. This article summarizes previous empirical and theoretical research findings that provide preliminary support for overconfidence in one’s objectivity and discusses this tendency from social and ecological validity perspectives.

Reconstructing human habitual behavior, such as the making of objects in the archaeological past, is not easy. However, some efforts, albeit few, have been made to overcome this limitation and to achieve more realistic and dynamic reconstructions and understandings of habitual behavior. These efforts have many direct and indirect connections with research in the field of cognition, including the understanding of human behavior, interactions between individuals and tools or between individuals and tools and objects, and knowledge that contributes to the understanding of learning. In this paper, we discuss the archaeology of pottery-making, especially in relation to ethnoarchaeological findings, based on the perspective of cognitive archaeology, while organizing motor habit, habitual body movement, and related concepts.