Sensors and Materials, Vol. 26, No. 7 (2014) 505–518
MYU Tokyo
S & M 1017

Overview of Social Cognitive Ability fromthe Perspective of Facial Expressions and Context—Estimating Emotion Based on Context Essays
and Facial Expressions—
Sakiko Ogoshi*, Tomohiro Takezawa1, Yasuhiro Ogoshi2,
Hisakazu T. Yanaka3 and Yoshinori Mitsuhashi4
Career Design Laboratory for Gender Equality, Kanazawa University,
Kakuma-machi, Kanazawa 920-1192, Japan
1The National Institute of Vocational Rehabilitation,
3-1-3 Wakaba, Mihama-ku, Chiba 261-0014, Japan
2Graduate School of Engineering, University of Fukui, 3-9-1 Bunkyo, Fukui 910-8507, Japan
3Faculty of Regional Science, Tottori University,
4-101 Koyama-cho Minami, Tottori 680-8550, Japan
4Faculty of Education and Regional Studies, University of Fukui,
3-9-1 Bunkyo, Fukui 910-8507, Japan(Received January 14, 2014; accepted May 1, 2014)
Key words:

facial expressions, context essays, sympathy, social skill training, NIRSIn recent years, increasing numbers of children have unbalanced emotional
developments and sociability, particularly individuals with autistic spectrum disorders(ASD), and have difficulty inferring other people’s feelings from their facial expressions
and contexts, and therefore, they are less able to respond with prosocial behavior. Thus,
teaching the connection between facial-based or situation-based emotions and prosocial
behavioral responses is needed. In this research, we provided essays describing thecontext and facial expressions of a given character, and gave participants tasks toestimate the characters’ emotion under two conditions: emotions described in thecontext essay and given facial expression were congruent, or they were incongruent.
Furthermore, we tracked frontal lobe activity that was deeply associated with highcognitive functions using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and examined whether thefrontal lobe activity related to emotion estimation differed as a function of the sympathy
level.

Corresponding author: e-mail: s-ogoshi@staff.kanazawa-u.ac.jp

*

505

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Sensors and Materials, Vol. 26, No. 7 (2014)

Introduction

In recent years, the importance of social cognitive ability in the workplace,particularly the need for communication has gained attention. However, increasing
numbers of children have unbalanced emotional development, problems with personal
relationships, sociability, and behavior, and have difficulty adapting to classrooms. To
solve these problems, it is imperative to plan educational programs specifically designedby considering each child’s ability and developmental condition, such that children canadapt to their daily environments and overcome their problems. However, it is difficult
to train social abilities and problem solving abilities, since social cognitive abilities
are context dependent and related to emotions. Therefore, the current support systemfor children with social problems needs to provide coping strategies after children
experience problems in social situations. Thus, the development of a human interface
that would allow children to develop social intelligence, undergo social experiences,and learn sociability through human-machine interactions is required. For example,
by applying “learn by teaching,” interactions, child users could teach social interaction
to a machine while the machine plays a learning role in a given situation. The machine
would also need to comprehend individual characteristics of each child’s basic social
cognitive abilities. Such a machine requires flexibility to provide feedback to promote
the development of children’s sociability, based on their developmental level andreflecting their social intelligence, social cognitive abilities, and characteristics. The
construction of smooth personal relationships with others demands the ability to estimate
other people’s psychological states, interpret them, and predict their behavior. Thus, it isimperative to clarify how normally developing children estimate others’ emotions basedon facial expressions and contexts.
Face recognition is a key concept in the autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) research
field, so many previous studies on face recognition(1–9) have been conducted. In thisstudy, we focused on sympathy as a psychological factor that is related to accurate
emotion estimation and examined the difference in strategy for assuming emotions
between children with high and low degrees of sympathy. Moreover, we investigatedneural activities during emotion estimation. We specifically provided facial expressions
and context essays that consisted of multiple cues for emotion estimation. Identifying
incongruences between facial expressions and contexts, for example, a sad facial
expression in a happy context, could provide a clue to a deep understanding of otherpeople’s emotions. In real life, there are many situations in which multiple cues, suchas facial expressions and contexts, are used to estimate emotions. However, there havebeen few studies that have examined the processes involved in emotion estimation.
In this study, we provided essays describing the context and facial expressions of agiven character, and gave participants tasks to estimate the characters’ emotions under
two conditions: (1) emotions described in the context essay and given facial expression
were congruent, or (2) they were incongruent. Furthermore, we tracked frontal lobe
activity that was deeply associated with high cognitive functions using near-infrared
spectroscopy (NIRS) and examined whether the frontal lobe activity related to emotion
estimation differed as a function of sympathy level. NIRS is a method for measuring
frontal lobe activity, which is deeply related to high cognitive functions.

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2.

Method and Procedure

2.1

Participants

2.2

Procedure of experiment

2.3

Stimuli and materials

507

Participants were 14 normally developing Japanese children [N = 14, 8 boys and 6
girls, age range 11 year and one month to 17 years and 8 months (mean ± SD = 13 ± 2
years old)] in the study. The parents of the children signed informed consent forms inadvance and accompanied their children.
(1) The task was explained to the children.
(2) Children moved to a shield room and completed five trial tasks that require estimating
the given characters’ emotions from their facial expressions and the context.
(3) Children’s understanding of task details was verified and they wore the NIRS
headgear.
(4) Eight blocks with ten tasks in each block were given to each child.
(5) The children took off the headgear and left the shield room, followed by the writingof the introspective report.
(6) After completing the Sympathy Scale (question sheet), the experiment ended.
(1) Facial expression pictures
We took pictures of a 12-year-old boy and a 7-year-old girl showing pleasant feelings(happy) and unpleasant feelings (disgust) by using a digital camera. These four picturesof facial expressions were trimmed to an oval shape by eliminating the neck and hair.
(2) Context essays
The boy in the picture was given a fictional name, “Taro” and the girl “Hanako”.
We created essays describing the contexts in which these characters were experiencing
emotions (context essays). We call each sentence that has a context as a ‘context essay’.
There were two types of emotional contexts, pleasant and unpleasant emotions, to evokecharacters’ emotional state. Ten sentences were created for each type of emotion (e.g.,
Taro was praised by a teacher and Hanako was scolded by a teacher) giving a total of 20
sentences. All the sentences started with either character, Taro or Hanako, as the subject.
Twenty sentences for each character were created resulting in 40 sentences.
[80 tasks is “face” {(happy or disgust) × (Taro or Hanako)} × “context essay” (pleasantor unpleasant).](3) Stimulus presentation and measuring device
A color liquid crystal display (LCD) monitor was used to present the stimuli. The
distance between the participants and the monitor was approximately 140 cm. The
participants responded using a numerical keyboard.
(4) NIRS
The change in oxygenated hemoglobin (Oxy-Hb) concentration in the blood during
the task performance was measured using ETG-7100 (Hitachi Medical Corporation).
By using probes that enabled measuring 22 ch in NIRS, near-infrared light (wavelength
700–900 nm) was irradiated to measure the change in Oxy-Hb concentration in the508

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cerebral cortex. To measure the activity of the prefrontal area, a 3 × 5 probe holder was
focused in the middle of the anterior, i.e., Fpz using the international 10–20 system, andthen covered both sides of the prefrontal area (Fig. 1). The sampling frequency was 10
Hz, a 0.02 Hz low-pass filter was used to remove the effects of Mayer waves, and a 0.001
Hz high-pass filter was used to remove baseline drift.

2.4

Flow of experimental task

Figure 2 shows a flow of the experimental task.
(1) The context essay was presented at the center of the computer screen (5 s).
(2) Next, the facial expression picture was presented (mentioned in Step 1) in the middleof the screen (2 s).
(3) A question asking to estimate the emotion of the character was presented on top of
the screen, and below the question, a choice of three responses was presented (happy
feeling, bad feeling, and others). The participants chose the best response from thethree choices. At the bottom of the screen, another question was presented asking
which cue the children used to estimate the emotion. Three choices (essays, facial
expressions, and both facial expressions and essays) were given to choose the bestanswer. To answer these questions, the participants were required to accurately holda numeric key corresponding to each choice for more than 3 s.
(4) The processes from Steps 1 through 3 were repeated. One block consisted of 10
trials (approximately 6 min), and 8 blocks (approximately 50 min) of the tasks wereconducted. The experimental condition was presented in a random order (Table 1).

Fig. 1. (Color online) Location of probe holders and channel number.

② Facial expression③ Choice screen

pleasant or unpleasant(Taro or Hanako) x (pleasant or unpleasant)What feeling?
What determines the clue?

5s

2s① Context essay

Hold a key(max. 3 s)Fig. 2. Flow of experimental task.

④ Blank between trials

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509

Table 1
Experimental conditions of the tasks. (Numbers in parentheses indicate trial numbers.)
Facial expressions
Pleasant face
Unpleasant face
Pleasant essay
Pleasant essay
Pleasant essay
Pleasant face (20) Unpleasant face (20)
(PP)
(PU)
Context essay
Unpleasant essay
Unpleasant essay
Unpleasant essay Pleasant face (20) Unpleasant face (20)
(UP)
(PU)

Two factors were examined in the present study, facial expressions and context essays: 2
types of emotion in the context essay (pleasant and unpleasant) × 2 types of emotion in
facial expressions (pleasant and unpleasant), and four conditions.

2.5

Sympathy Scale

2.6

Procedure

2.7

Recording indices

The Sympathy Scale was a questionnaire created by Sakurai to measure the level of
sympathy. The questionnaire included 20 questions, and responses consisting of “yes” or“no” were recorded in a 5-point scale.(10)The experiment was conducted in the shield room. Prior to the experiment, thedetails of the experiment and the description of the NIRS device were explained to thechildren and their parents, and their consent was obtained. Then, the children wereseated in a chair in the shield room and engaged in 5 practice trials using the numerickeyboard located on the right-hand side. After confirming that children completely
understood the experimental procedure, they wore the NIRS headgear. To prevent
interference to the NIRS signals by artifacts, the children were told not to move theirheads during the experiment.
The children were shown a brief profile of the characters and instructed to carefully
estimate the emotions of the characters, not the emotion of the children themselves, inthe given contexts. The instructions given were as follows:“Please press the button of the color that corresponds to the choice showing theemotion of the characters by using the essays and facial expressions as a hint. Althoughfacial expressions can be a big hint to read people’s feelings, sometimes it is difficult
to read their true feelings only from the facial expressions, such as bitter smiles andfake crying. Thus, please focus on both facial expressions and sentences, and read theirmind”.
(1) Selection of each choice
For each experimental condition, the choice ratio regarding the clues used for theemotion estimation was calculated. In particular, the following equation was used to
calculate the ratio.

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Choice ratio = number of trials that chose the corresponding choice/total number ofcorresponding trials(2) Response time for emotion estimation
The time taken by children to choose the emotion estimation response (selective
response time) was calculated as the time from the moment when the choice screen waspresented to the moment when the participant pressed a key.
(3) Measurement signals of NIRS
Based on previous studies,(11,12) oxy-Hb of measurement signals in NIRS varies
less and indicates a higher repeatability than deoxy-Hb. Thus, in the present study, theanalysis was limited to oxy-Hb. Using the analytical software, arithmetic means of thechange in oxy-Hb concentration for each experimental condition were calculated. For
the arithmetic means, the moment that a facial expression picture was presented wasconsidered as the zero point, and 2 s prior to that moment was defined as the baseline.
(4) Sympathy Scale
For each question, in the order of high to low sympathy, a score was given as 5, 4, 3,
2, and 1 point. The sum of the points for the 20 questions was defined as the sympathy
score. On the basis of the obtained sympathy score, children were divided into twogroups: a high-sympathy group and a low-sympathy group. Children whose sympathy
scores were higher than the median (61 out of 100 points) were grouped into the highsympathy group, and children whose scores were lower than the median were grouped
into the low-sympathy group. The low-sympathy group included six children (four boys
and two girls), and their mean ± SD was 56 ± 2.9 points. The high-sympathy group
included six children (three boys and three girls), and their mean ± SD was 67 ± 5.7
points. Two children who had median scores were excluded from the analyses.

2.8

Data analysis(1) Selectivity of each choice
To examine whether the judgment of emotion estimation differed as a function of
sympathy level, a two-way ANOVA, types of emotion (happy feeling, bad feeling, andothers) × 2 levels of sympathy (low sympathy and high sympathy), was performed forselectivity about the choices of emotion estimation.
(2) Selective response time for emotion estimation
To examine whether the response time for judging emotion estimation differed as afunction of sympathy level, a two-way ANOVA, 3 types of judgment resource (essays,
facial expressions, and both facial expression and essays) × 2 levels of sympathy (lowsympathy and high sympathy), was performed for the selectivity about the clue choices.
(3) Measurement signals of NIRSThe additive average wavelength of Oxy-Hb concentration that was calculated foreach experimental condition was used to calculate the arithmetic average. The probe
channels from 1 through 13 were used for the data analyses excluding the channels thatwere interfered by noises owing to body movements and hair.
∙ PP wavelength + UU wavelength → congruent condition wavelength∙ PU wavelength + UP wavelength → incongruent condition wavelength∙ PP wavelength + PU wavelength → pleasant condition wavelength

Sensors and Materials, Vol. 26, No. 7 (2014)

511∙ UU wavelength + UP wavelength → unpleasant condition wavelength
For each condition listed above, the average Oxy-Hb concentration obtained 5 to 10
s after the moment of facial expression presentation was used for calculation as therepresentative value.
To examine whether the amount of activity in the frontal lobe when processing
incongruent emotions differs as a function of sympathy level, a two-way ANOVA, 2levels of congruency (congruent and incongruent) × 2 levels of sympathy (low sympathy
and high sympathy), was performed for the Oxy-Hb concentration under the congruent
and incongruent conditions.
Similarly, to examine the amount of activity in the frontal lobe when processing
pleasant and unpleasant emotions that differ as a function of sympathy level, a two-way
ANOVA, 2 levels of emotion (pleasant and unpleasant) × 2 levels of sympathy (lowsympathy and high sympathy), was performed for the Oxy-Hb concentration for pleasantand unpleasant conditions.
(4) Correlational analysis
To examine the relationships among the frontal lobe activity level, developmental
level, and sympathy for each experimental condition (congruent, incongruent, pleasant,and unpleasant conditions), the average Oxy-Hb concentration between 1 and 13
channels for each condition was calculated. Then, the Pearson correlations between
average Oxy-Hb concentration, age, and the sympathy score for each condition were
calculated.

3.

Hypothesis

3.1

Selection ratio of choices related to emotion estimation

3.2

Selection ratio of choices related to cues

Under the pleasant essay/pleasant face condition (PP condition) and the unpleasantessay/unpleasant face condition (UU condition), the emotions assumed from the essay
and facial expression are congruent. Thus, the following results would be obtained.
∙ PP condition: happy feeling > bad feeling, others∙ UU condition: bad feeling > happy feeling, others
Under the pleasant essay/unpleasant face condition (PU condition) and the unpleasantessay/pleasant face condition (UP condition) in which the aroused emotions areincongruent with the given context essay and the facial expression, it is often adequate touse the context as a cue to judge the emotion. Moreover, the higher the sympathy level,
the less facial expressions are used to judge by intuition, and people would estimate
emotion based on the context. Therefore, the following results are expected.
∙ “happy feeling” selection ratio under PU condition: high sympathy > low sympathy∙ “bad feeling” selection ratio under UP condition: high sympathy > low sympathy
Under the PP and UP conditions, the participants would use both context essays andfacial expressions for emotion estimation.
∙ PP condition: both essay and facial expression > essay, facial expression∙ UU condition: both essay and facial expression > essay, facial expression

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Under the PU and UP conditions, as stated earlier, more participants in the highsympathy group than in the low sympathy group would tend to estimate the emotion
from the contexts.

3.3

Selective response time for emotion estimation

3.4

Measurement of brain function using NIRS

4.

Results and Discussion

4.1

Selection ratio of choices related to emotion estimation

4.2

Selection ratio of choices related to cues

The selective response time for the emotion estimation would be longer for theincongruent conditions, PU and UP conditions, than for the congruent conditions, the PP
and UU conditions.
∙ PP and UU conditions < PU and UP conditions
The response time will be shorter for the low-sympathy group under PU and UP
conditions.
∙ Response time under PU and UP conditions: high-sympathy group < low-sympathy
group
Previous studies(13) suggest that the prefrontal lobe is related to the processing ofincongruent information. Thus, the following results will be expected.
∙ PP condition, UU condition < PU condition, UP condition
Moreover, people with high sympathy can easily estimate emotion even under theincongruent condition aroused by the context essay and the facial expression. Thus, theprefrontal cortex will not be used for people in the low-sympathy group.
∙ Oxy-Hb concentration change rate under PU and UP conditions: high-sympathygroup < low-sympathy group

Figure 3 shows the average selection ratios of each choice related to emotion
estimation for each condition. For each condition, a two-way ANOVA, 3 types of choice(happy feeling, bad feeling, and others) × 2 levels of sympathy (high sympathy and low
sympathy), was performed using the selection ratios, and a significant difference wasfound.
∙ PP condition:“happy feeling” > “bad feeling”, “ others” [F(2,20) = 2852.5, p < 0.01]∙ UU condition:“bad feeling” > “happy feeling”, “ others” [F(2,20) = 2650.1, p < 0.01]∙ PU condition:“happy feeling” > “others” [F(2,20) = 8.4, p < 0.01]∙ UP condition:“bad feeling” > “happy feeling”, “others” [F(2,20) = 20.6, p < 0.01]
Figure 4 shows the participants’ average selection ratio of each choice presented as
the cues that they used to estimate the emotions for each condition. For each condition,a two-way ANOVA, 3 types of choice (essays, facial expressions, and both essay types

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Low-sympathy group
other
3%

other
1%

PP

happy feeling
97%

other
3%

UU

bad
feeling39 %bad feeling99%

High-sympathy group
other
2%

PP

happy
U U feeling
1%

other
1%

PU

other
7%

UP

feeling
26 %happy
feeling58 %bad feeling
73 %

other
4%

PU

UP
happy
feeling17 %badfeeling
happy feelingbad feeling

100 %

97%

23 %

happy
feeling

bad feeling

70 %

79 %

Fig. 3. Average selection ratios of emotion estimation by group and condition.

context essays
context essays and facial expressions
facial expressions

Low-sympathy group
PP

UU

2%

11%

14%
84%

87%

PU

2%

UP

15%

13%

50%

35%

17%
70%

High-sympathy group
1%

PP

2%

1%

UU

7%

16%

PU

92%

UP

18%

24%
97%

15%

70%

77%

Fig. 4. Participants’ average selection ratio of cues used in the emotion estimation by group andcondition.

and facial expressions) × 2 levels of sympathy (high sympathy and low sympathy), wasperformed for the average selection ratio. The following results were significant.
∙ PP condition:“both essay and facial expression” > “essay”, “facial expression” [F(2,20) = 349.4, p < 0.01]∙ UU condition:“both essay and facial expression” > “essay”, “facial expression” [F(2,20) = 203.2, p < 0.01]∙ PU condition:“essay” > “both essay and facial expression” [F(2,20) = 4.1, p < 0.01]∙ UP condition:“essay” > “facial expression”, “both essay and facial expression” [F(2,20) = 13.0, p < 0.01]

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There were no significant differences between the high-sympathy group and the lowsympathy group in selection ratio among the choices given for emotion estimation andcues. From the results, our hypothesis that highly sympathetic children would estimate
emotion based on the context was not completely supported.

4.3

Selective response time for emotion estimation

4.4

Measurement of brain function using NIRS

4.5

Correlational analysis

Figure 5 shows the average response time for the emotion estimation for eachcondition; a two-way ANOVA, 4 experimental conditions (PP, UU, PU, and UP
conditions) × 2 levels of sympathy (high sympathy and low sympathy), was performed
for the average response time for each experimental condition. The following result wassignificant.
∙ Low-sympathy group:
PU and UP conditions > PP condition [F(3,30) = 2.3, p < 0.01]
This result shows that it is difficult for children with low sympathy to processincongruent information provided by the context essay and facial expression.
Figure 6 shows the average wavelength and the representative values of the average
Oxy-Hb concentration at 11 channels for each experimental condition (congruent,incongruent, pleasant, and unpleasant) and sympathy group. In the figure, the change
in Oxy-Hb concentration in the high-sympathy group is larger than that in the lowsympathy group. A two-way ANOVA, 2 levels of congruency (congruent andincongruent) × 2 levels of sympathy (high sympathy and low sympathy), and anothertwo-way ANOVA, 2 emotional states (pleasant and unpleasant) × 2 levels of sympathy (highsympathy and low sympathy), were performed. However, the results of these analyses
show no statistically significant main effects and interactions.
To examine the relationship between age, sympathy, and blood flow level ofthe prefrontal lobe, Pearson correlations were calculated using the average Oxy-

Fig. 5. Average response time by condition for each sympathy group (error bars indicate standard
deviations).

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Low-sympathy group/congruent
Low-sympathy group/incongruent
High-sympathy group/congruent
High-sympathy group/incongruent

0.01
mMm
m

Low-sympathy group/pleasantLow-sympathy group/unpleasantHigh-sympathy group/pleasantHigh-sympathy group/unpleasant

0.01
mMm
m

2s

(mMmm)(mMmm)

Low-sympathy group

Low-sympathy group

High-sympathy groupcongruent2s

incongruent

High-sympathy grouppleasant

unpleasantFig. 6. Representative values and average wavelength of average Oxy-Hb concentration bysympathy group and condition.

Table 2
Correlations between average Oxy-Hb concentration for each condition, sympathy score, and age.
Average Oxy-Hb concentration
Sympathy
Age
score
Congruent Incongruent Pleasant UnpleasantAge—−0.1900.153
0.316−0.076
0.602
Sympathy score—−0.294−0.0980.034−0.3970.576
Congruent—
0.482
0.819**
0.621—
0.552*
Average Oxy-Hb Incongruent
concentration
Pleasant—
0.172
Unpleasant—

Hb concentration at the prefrontal lobe for each condition (congruent, incongruent,pleasant, and unpleasant conditions), sympathy score, and age as variables. Table 2
shows correlations between variables. The result of the correlation analyses indicatedsignificant relationships between the average Oxy-Hb concentration and the congruent
condition, and between the average Oxy-Hb concentration and the pleasant condition (r= 0.82, p < 0.01).

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Furthermore, significant correlations were found between the average Oxy-Hb
concentration and the unpleasant and pleasant conditions (r = 0.55, p < 0.05). It isdifficult to interpret these significant correlations; thus, it is required to confirm that thesame result would be obtained when the same study as the present study is performed.
By doing so, it could be clarified that the obtained correlations in the present study are
fake correlations or not.

5.

Conclusions

In the present study, we presented the contexts and facial expressions of fictional
characters to children, provided the emotion estimation tasks in which the emotions
aroused by these cues are congruent or incongruent, and examined whether these tasks
were performed differently depending on the individual characteristics represented by thelevel of sympathy. At the same time, we examined whether prefrontal lobe activities thatare related to the emotion estimation differ as a function of sympathy level using NIRS.
The present study provided clues to the estimation of multiple emotions such as facial
expressions and contexts that potentially become the sources for developing a humaninterphase related to the development of the social cognitive ability. However, moredetailed experiments are expected to be performed in a future study, and an examinationof the physiological index using brain waves not only by NIRS but also by othertechniques and the development of brain machine interface (BMI) using these findings
are also anticipated.

Acknowledgements
We thank the children who participated in this study and Kasumi Tomokane who
assisted us in data collection. This work was supported by KAKENHI (Grant-in-Aid for
Scientific Research (B): 20157556, Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C): 21610007
and 24600005, Grant-in-Aid for JSPS Fellows 23-40189, and Research Activity Start-up:
22830033).

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About the Authors
Sakiko Ogoshi is an assistant professor of the Career Design
Laboratory for Gender Equality, Kanazawa University, Japan.
She received her Ph.D. Degree in Engineering from the
University of Kanazawa in 2004. She was a researcher at theJapan Society for the Promotion of Science and the Facultyof Education and Regional Studies, University of Fukui from2011 to 2014. Her research interests include special needs anddevelopmental disorders and knowledge management systemapplied information technology.
Tomohiro Takezawa received his Ph.D. Degree in Psychology
from Hiroshima University. He specializes in cognitive abilities
and assistive technology.

Yasuhiro Ogoshi is an associate professor of the Graduate Schoolof Engineering, University of Fukui, Japan. He received his
Ph.D. Degree in Engineering from the University of Kanazawa in
2001. He is engaged in studies related to human interface.

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Hisakazu T. Yanaka received his B.A.S. Degree in Information
Sciences from Fukushima University in 2004, his M.S. Degree
in Medical Sciences from Hokkaido University in 2006, and
his Ph.D. Degree in Psychophysiology from The Graduate
University for Advanced Studies in 2009. He joined Researchand Education Program for Life Science at University of Fukui
in 2009. He left University of Fukui in 2012 and joined Tottori
University. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Faculty ofRegional Sciences, Tottori University, and is actively engaged in
the research on developmental psychology and neuroimaging.
Yoshinori Mitsuhashi is a professor emeritus and currently a
specially assigned professor of the Faculty of Education andRegional Studies at Fukui University, Japan. He graduatedfrom Kwansei-Gakuin University, Department of Experimental
Psychology in 1972, and finished his graduate study in 1980.
He became an associate professor of Fukui University in1981 and left as a professor in 2014. His research covers
psychophysiology of cognition and education of handicappedchildren. In particular, he studies the cognitive process in thechildren and adults with neurodevelopmental disorders using theelectrical activity of the brain.