Researcher Profile and Settings

Profile and Settings

Name

• Name

  OTSUKA Yumiko

Profile & Settings

• researchmapURL

  URL（英）

Affiliations

Affiliation (Master)

• School of Psychology, Professor
• Department of Psychology, Professor
• Graduate School of Psychology, Professor

その他基本情報

Academic & Professional Experience

• Apr. 2023, 9999, Chukyo University, School of Psychology, Professor
• Apr. 2015, Mar. 2023, Ehime University, Faculty of Law and Letters, Associate Professor
• Jan. 2014, Mar. 2015, School of Psychology, The University of New South Wales, Research Associate
• Apr. 2013, Dec. 2013, School of Psychology, The University of Sydney, Postdoctoral Research Associate
• Apr. 2010, Mar. 2013, School of Psychology, The University of New South Wales, ARC Postdoctral Fellow
• Apr. 2007, Mar. 2010
• Apr. 2005, Mar. 2007

Research Activities

Book, papers, etc

Published Papers

• A novel on-demand remote testing system for infant visual perception
  Nobu Shirai; Mizuki Kawai; Tomoko Imura; Yumiko Otsuka
  The Japanese Journal of Psychonomic Science, 40, 2, 110, 120, 2022, Joint Work
• Is there a 'zone of eye contact' within the borders of the face?
  Colin J. Palmer; Sophia G. Bracken; Yumiko Otsuka; Colin W.G. Clifford
  Cognition, Elsevier, 220, 104981, 104981, 2022, Joint Work
• A sparkle in the eye: Illumination cues and lightness constancy in the perception of eye contact
  Palmer, CJ; Otsuka, Y; Clifford, C.W.G
  Cognition, Elsevier, 205, 104419, 1, 13, 2020, Joint Work
• Influence of head orientation on perceived gaze direction and eye-region information.
  Otsuka Y; Clifford CWG
  Journal of vision, ASSOC RESEARCH VISION OPHTHALMOLOGY INC, 18, 12(15), 1, 22, 2018, Joint Work
• Biases in perceiving gaze vergence.
  ATT Nguyen; CJ Palmer; Y Otsuka; CWG Clifford
  Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 147, 8, 1125, 1133, 2018, Joint Work
• Testing the dual-route model of perceived gaze direction: Linear combination of eye and head cues
  Yumiko Otsuka; Isabelle Mareschal; Colin W. G. Clifford
  JOURNAL OF VISION, ASSOC RESEARCH VISION OPHTHALMOLOGY INC, 16, 8(8), 1, 12, 2016, Joint Work, We have recently proposed a dual-route model of the effect of head orientation on perceived gaze direction (Otsuka, Mareschal, Calder, & Clifford, 2014; Otsuka, Mareschal, & Clifford, 2015), which computes perceived gaze direction as a linear combination of eye orientation and head orientation. By parametrically manipulating eye orientation and head orientation, we tested the adequacy of a linear model to account for the effect of horizontal head orientation on perceived direction of gaze. Here, participants adjusted an on-screen pointer toward the perceived gaze direction in two image conditions: Normal condition and Wollaston condition. Images in the Normal condition included a change in the visible part of the eye along with the change in head orientation, while images in the Wollaston condition were manipulated to have identical eye regions across head orientations. Multiple regression analysis with explanatory variables of eye orientation and head orientation revealed that linear models account for most of the variance both in the Normal condition and in the Wollaston condition. Further, we found no evidence that the model with a nonlinear term explains significantly more variance. Thus, the current study supports the dual-route model that computes the perceived gaze direction as a linear combination of eye orientation and head orientation.
• "Are You Looking At Me?" How Children's Gaze Judgments Improve With Age
  Isabelle Mareschal; Yumiko Otsuka; Colin W. G. Clifford; Denis Mareschal
  DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, AMER PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOC, 52, 5, 695, 703, 2016, Joint Work, Adults' judgments of another person's gaze reflect both sensory (e.g., perceptual) and nonsensory (e.g., decisional) processes. We examined how children's performance on a gaze categorization task develops over time by varying uncertainty in the stimulus presented to 6- to 11-year-olds (n = 57). We found that younger children responded "direct" over a wider range of gaze deviations. We also found that increasing uncertainty led to an increase in direct responses, across all age groups. A simple model to account for these data revealed that although younger children had a noisier sensory representation of the stimulus, most developmental changes in gaze were because of a change in children's response criteria (category boundaries). These results suggest that although the core mechanisms for gaze processing are already in place by the age of 6, their development continues across the whole of childhood.
• Wollaston's effect in infants: Do infants integrate eye and head information in gaze perception?
  Yumiko Otsuka; Hiroko Ichikawa; Colin W. G. Clifford; So Kanazawa; Masami K. Yamaguchi
  JOURNAL OF VISION, ASSOC RESEARCH VISION OPHTHALMOLOGY INC, 16, 3(4), 1, 8, 2016, Joint Work, The current study examined infants' sensitivity to Wollaston's effect: When identical eyes are placed in differently angled faces, the perceived gaze direction shifts toward the orientation of the face such that physically, the direct gaze is perceived as averted toward the orientation of the face. Consistent with Wollaston's effect, we found that looking toward direct and averted gaze by 4- to 5- and 7- to 8-month-olds (n = 40) was affected by the head orientation context. These results demonstrate that infants aged 4 to 5 and 7 to 8 months integrate eye and head information to perceive another's gaze direction. In light of recent psychophysical findings, the current results suggest that the visual function supporting constant gaze perception across head rotation is already at work by 4 to 5 months of age.
• Who are you expecting? Biases in face perception reveal prior expectations for sex and age
  Tamara Lea Watson; Yumiko Otsuka; Colin Walter Giles Clifford
  JOURNAL OF VISION, ASSOC RESEARCH VISION OPHTHALMOLOGY INC, 16, 35), 1, 9, 2016, Joint Work, A person's appearance contains a wealth of information, including indicators of their sex and age. Because first impressions can set the tone of subsequent relationships, it is crucial we form an accurate initial impression. Yet prior expectation can bias our decisions: Studies have reported biases to respond "male'' when asked to report a person's sex from an image of their face and to place their age closer to their own. Perceptual expectation effects and cognitive response biases may both contribute to these inaccuracies. The current research used a Bayesian modeling approach to establish the perceptual biases involved when estimating the sex and age of an individual from their face. We demonstrate a perceptual bias for male and older faces evident under conditions of uncertainty. This suggests the well-established male bias is perceptual in origin and may be impervious to cognitive control. In comparison, the own age anchor effect is not operationalized at the perceptual level: The perceptual expectation is for a face of advanced age. Thus, distinct biases in the estimation of age operate at the perceptual and cognitive levels.
• A Bayesian approach to person perception
  C. W. G. Clifford; I. Mareschal; Y. Otsuka; T. L. Watson
  CONSCIOUSNESS AND COGNITION, ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE, 36, 406, 413, 2015, Joint Work, Here we propose a Bayesian approach to person perception, outlining the theoretical position and a methodological framework for testing the predictions experimentally. We use the term person perception to refer not only to the perception of others' personal attributes such as age and sex but also to the perception of social signals such as direction of gaze and emotional expression. The Bayesian approach provides a formal description of the way in which our perception combines current sensory evidence with prior expectations about the structure of the environment. Such expectations can lead to unconscious biases in our perception that are particularly evident when sensory evidence is uncertain. We illustrate the ideas with reference to our recent studies on gaze perception which show that people have a bias to perceive the gaze of others as directed towards themselves. We also describe a potential application to the study of the perception of a person's sex, in which a bias towards perceiving males is typically observed. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
• Face Orientation and Motion Differently Affect the Deployment of Visual Attention in Newborns and 4-Month-Old Infants
  Eloisa Valenza; Yumiko Otsuka; Hermann Bulf; Hiroko Ichikawa; So Kanazawa; Masami K. Yamaguchi
  PLOS ONE, PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE, 10, 9(e0136965), 1, 20, 2015, Joint Work, Orienting visual attention allows us to properly select relevant visual information from a noisy environment. Despite extensive investigation of the orienting of visual attention in infancy, it is unknown whether and how stimulus characteristics modulate the deployment of attention from birth to 4 months of age, a period in which the efficiency in orienting of attention improves dramatically. The aim of the present study was to compare 4-month-old infants' and newborns' ability to orient attention from central to peripheral stimuli that have the same or different attributes. In Experiment 1, all the stimuli were dynamic and the only attribute of the central and peripheral stimuli to be manipulated was face orientation. In Experiment 2, both face orientation and motion of the central and peripheral stimuli were contrasted. The number of valid trials and saccadic latency were measured at both ages. Our results demonstrated that the deployment of attention is mainly influenced by motion at birth, while it is also influenced by face orientation at 4-month of age. These findings provide insight into the development of the orienting visual attention in the first few months of life and suggest that maturation may be not the only factor that determines the developmental change in orienting visual attention from birth to 4 months.
• Gaze constancy in upright and inverted faces
  Yumiko Otsuka; Isabelle Mareschal; Colin W. G. Clifford
  JOURNAL OF VISION, ASSOC RESEARCH VISION OPHTHALMOLOGY INC, 15, 1(21), 1, 14, 2015, Joint Work, The dual-route model (Otsuka, Mareschal, Calder, & Clifford, 2014) posits that constancy in the perception of gaze direction across lateral head rotation depends on the integration of information from the eye region and information about head rotation. Incorporation of information about head rotation serves to compensate for the change in eye-region information when viewing a rotated head. We tested the ability of this model to predict the magnitude of Wollaston's effect: When eyes from a frontal pose are inserted into an angled face, the perceived direction of gaze appears attracted towards the direction of the head. The framework of the dual-route model explains Wollaston's effect as a result of the misapplication of this same integration operation without any change in eye-region information. To test this explanation, we compared the magnitude of the integration occurring for Wollaston's effect to that for normal faces. Here, participants performed categorical judgment of gaze direction across head rotation poses in three image conditions: normal face, eyes-only, and Wollaston. Integration of eye and head information was inferred by comparing the effect of pose between the eyes-only condition and the normal face condition, and by examining the effect of pose in the Wollaston condition. Consistent with the dual-route model, the magnitude of integration was similar between the normal face condition and the Wollaston condition. Further, upright and inverted faces yielded similar levels of gaze constancy, showing that the dual-route model applies to the perception of gaze direction in inverted faces as well as in upright faces.
• Dual-Route Model of the Effect of Head Orientation on Perceived Gaze Direction
  Yumiko Otsuka; Isabelle Mareschal; Andrew J. Calder; Colin W. G. Clifford
  JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY-HUMAN PERCEPTION AND PERFORMANCE, AMER PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOC, 40, 4, 1425, 1439, 2014, Joint Work, Previous studies on gaze perception have identified 2 opposing effects of head orientation on perceived gaze direction-1 repulsive and the other attractive. However, the relationship between these 2 effects has remained unclear. By using a gaze categorization task, the current study examined the effect of head orientation on the perceived direction of gaze in a whole-head condition and an eye-region condition. We found that the perceived direction of gaze was generally biased in the opposite direction to head orientation (a repulsive effect). Importantly, the magnitude of the repulsive effect was more pronounced in the eye-region condition than in the whole-head condition. Based on these findings, we developed a dual-route model, which proposes that the 2 opposing effects of head orientation occur through 2 distinct routes. In the framework of this dual-route model, we explain and reconcile the findings from previous studies, and provide a functional account of attractive and repulsive effects and their interaction.
• Temporal Dynamics of Spatial Frequency Processing in Infants
  Yumiko Otsuka; Hiroko Ichikawa; So Kanazawa; Masami K. Yamaguchi; Branka Spehar
  JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY-HUMAN PERCEPTION AND PERFORMANCE, AMER PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOC, 40, 3, 995, 1008, 2014, Joint Work, The current study examined the temporal dynamics of coarse and fine spatial information processing in 7- to 8-month-old infants. The ability to discriminate between spatially filtered images was assessed by measuring infants' spontaneous preference for a changing over no-changing image sequences. In Experiments 1 and 2, we found that infants were able to discriminate between low spatial frequency (LSF) image sequences at shorter durations (150 ms) than was the case with high spatial frequency (HSF) images (300 ms). When the LSF and HSF changes were pitted against each other in hybrid images containing both spatial frequencies (Experiment 3), the 7- to 8-month-old infants showed a preference for the LSF change across all tested durations (150 ms to 600 ms). However, infants' processing of hybrid image sequences was modulated both by changes in the relative contrast energy between LSFs and HSFs (Experiment 4), and image duration (Experiment 5). Finally, we found that in 12- to 13-month-old infants, the shift toward HSF dominance occurred at shorter duration than in 7- to 8-month-old infants (Experiment 6). Our findings are among the first to provide a temporal characterization of coarse-to-fine processing in infants' perception. Possible links to the development of specialized visual pathways are discussed.
• The processing of faces across non-rigid facial transformation develops at 7 month of age: a fNIRS-adaptation study
  Megumi Kobayashi; Yumiko Otsuka; So Kanazawa; Masami K. Yamaguchi; Ryusuke Kakigi
  BMC NEUROSCIENCE, BIOMED CENTRAL LTD, 15, 81, 1, 8, 2014, Joint Work, Background: Using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), our previous neural adaptation studies found that infants' bilateral temporal regions process facial identity (FiHN 5:153, 2011). In addition, we revealed that size-invariant processing of facial identity develops by 5 months of age (NR 23:984-988, 2012), while view-invariant processing develops around 7 months of age (FiHN 5:153, 2011). The aim in the current study was to examine whether infants' brains process facial identity across the non-rigid transformation of facial features by using the neural adaptation paradigm. We used NIRS to compare hemodynamic changes in the bilateral temporal areas of 5- to 6-month-olds and 7- to 8-month-olds during presentations of an identical face and of different faces. Results: We found that (1) the oxyhemoglobin concentration around the T5 and T6 positions increased significantly during the presentation of different faces only in 7- to 8-month-olds and (2) 7- to 8-month-olds, but not 5- to 6-month-olds, showed attenuation in these channels to the presentation of the same face rather than to the presentation of different faces, regardless of non-rigid changes in facial features. Conclusions: Our results suggest that the processing of facial identity with non-rigid facial transformation develops around 7 months after birth.
• Face recognition in infants: A review of behavioral and near-infrared spectroscopic studies
  Yumiko Otsuka
  JAPANESE PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH, The Japanese Psychological Association, 56, 1, 76, 90, 2014, Single Work, Recent developmental studies investigating face recognition ability in infants' have provided evidence not only that infants show selective attention to faces, but also that they can discriminate between faces from birth, and that biases in face processing such as the face inversion and other race effects exist even in infancy. Studies measuring the hemodynamic responses to facial images in the infants' brain using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) have also reported differential cortical activity in response to face and nonface images in infants. This paper will review recent findings on infants face recognition provided by both behavioral studies and neuroimaging studies using NIRS. These converging lines of evidence point to the early onset of face recognition ability in infancy.
• A generalized tendency toward direct gaze with uncertainty
  Isabelle Mareschal; Yumiko Otsuka; Colin W. G. Clifford
  JOURNAL OF VISION, ASSOC RESEARCH VISION OPHTHALMOLOGY INC, 14, 12(27), 1, 9, 2014, Joint Work, Joint gaze behavior plays a crucial role in nonverbal communication and enhances group interactions. We recently reported that under conditions of uncertainty, observers assume that another person's (left/right averted) gaze is directed towards them, a prior for direct gaze. Given that people's gaze can deviate in many directions during social interactions, we developed a versatile method to examine how the influence of the prior for direct gaze varies across a range of gaze directions in both forward facing and rotated heads. We find that observers tend to report another's gaze along all axes as being more direct when uncertainty is introduced by adding noise to the stimulus. We also find that the influence of the prior is stronger in rotated heads than direct (forward) heads. This is consistent with the idea that, when uncertain, humans tend to judge gaze deviations as being directed at them, regardless of head rotation or axis of deviation.
• Contrast reversal of the eyes impairs infants' face processing: A near-infrared spectroscopic study
  Hiroko Ichikawa; Yumiko Otsuka; So Kanazawa; Masami K. Yamaguchi; Ryusuke Kakigi
  NEUROPSYCHOLOGIA, PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD, 51, 13, 2556, 2561, 2013, Joint Work, Human can easily detect other's eyes and gaze from early in life. Such sensitivity is supported by the contrast polarity of human eyes, which have a white sclera contrasting with the darker colored iris (Kobayashi & Kohshima, (1997). Nature, 387, 767-768; Kobayashi & Kohshima, (2001). Journal of Human Evolution, 40, 419-435). Recent studies suggest that the contrast polarity around the eyes plays an important role in infants' face processing. Newborns preferred upright face images to inverted ones in contrast-preserved faces, but not in contrast-reversed faces (Farroni et al., (2005). Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 102, p. 17245-17250). Seven-to 8-month-old infants failed to discriminate between faces when the contrast polarity of eyes was reversed (Otsuka et al., (2013). Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 115, 598-606). Neuroimaging study with adults revealed that full-negative faces induced less activation in the right fusiform gyrus than either full-positive faces or negative faces with contrast-preserved eyes (Gilad et al., (2009). Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 106, p. 5353-5358). In the present study, we investigated whether contrast-reversed eyes diminish infants' brain activity related to face processing. We measured hemodynamic responses in the bilateral temporal area of 5-to 6-month-old infants. Their hemodynamic responses to faces with positive eyes and those with negative eyes were compared against the baseline activation during the presentation of object images. We found that the presentation of faces with positive eyes increased the concentration of oxy-Hb in the right temporal area and those of total-Hb in the bilateral temporal areas. No such change occurred for faces with negative eyes. Our results suggest the importance of contrast polarity of the eyes in the face-selective neural responses from early development. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
• Eye contrast polarity is critical for face recognition by infants
  Yumiko Otsuka; Isamu Motoyoshi; Harold C. Hill; Megumi Kobayashi; So Kanazawa; Masami K. Yamaguchi
  JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL CHILD PSYCHOLOGY, ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE, 115, 3, 598, 606, 2013, Joint Work, Just as faces share the same basic arrangement of features, with two eyes above a nose above a mouth, human eyes all share the same basic contrast polarity relations, with a sclera lighter than an iris and a pupil, and this is unique among primates. The current study examined whether this bright dark relationship of sclera to iris plays a critical role in face recognition from early in development. Specifically, we tested face discrimination in 7- and 8-month-old infants while independently manipulating the contrast polarity of the eye region and of the rest of the face. This gave four face contrast polarity conditions: fully positive condition, fully negative condition, positive face with negated eyes ("negative eyes") condition, and negated face with positive eyes ("positive eyes") condition. In a familiarization and novelty preference procedure, we found that 7- and 8-month-olds could discriminate between faces only when the contrast polarity of the eyes was preserved (positive) and that this did not depend on the contrast polarity of the rest of the face. This demonstrates the critical role of eye contrast polarity for face recognition in 7- and 8-month-olds and is consistent with previous findings for adults. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
• Infants' sensitivity to vertical disparity for depth perception.
  Tsuruhara, A; Kaneko, H; Kanazawa, S; Otsuka, Y; Shirai, N; Yamaguchi M.K
  Optical Reveiw, 20, 277, 281, 2013, Joint Work
• Size-invariant representation of face in infant brain: an fNIRS-adaptation study
  Megumi Kobayashi; Yumiko Otsuka; So Kanazawa; Masami K. Yamaguchi; Ryusuke Kakigi
  NEUROREPORT, LIPPINCOTT WILLIAMS & WILKINS, 23, 17, 984, 988, 2012, Joint Work, We studied whether 5-month-old to 8-month-old infants process faces in a size-invariant manner by applying the fNIRS-adaptation paradigm used in our previous study. We used near-infrared spectroscopy to measure hemodynamic responses in the temporal regions of infants' brains during the repeated presentation of an identical face and different faces while changing the size of the faces. As a result, we found that (a) the hemodynamic responses in the channels around the T5 and T6 positions increased significantly during the presentation of different faces and (b) the hemodynamic responses in these channels showed attenuation to the presentation of the same face compared with the presentation of different faces even when the size of the faces altered. Our findings indicated that infants could show adaptation to the same face despite size alterations and that this processing occurred in the bilateral temporal areas. NeuroReport 23:984-988 (C) 2012 Wolters Kluwer Health vertical bar Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
• Perception of Mooney faces by young infants: The role of local feature visibility, contrast polarity, and motion
  Yumiko Otsuka; Harold C. H. Hill; So Kanazawa; Masami K. Yamaguchi; Branka Spehar
  JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL CHILD PSYCHOLOGY, ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE, 111, 2, 164, 179, 2012, Joint Work, We examined the ability of young infants (3- and 4-month-olds) to detect faces in the two-tone images often referred to as Mooney faces. In Experiment 1, this performance was examined in conditions of high and low visibility of local features and with either the presence or absence of the outer head contour. We found that regardless of the presence of the outer head contour, infants preferred upright over inverted two-tone face images only when local features were highly visible (Experiment 1a). We showed that this upright preference disappeared when the contrast polarity of two-tone images was reversed (Experiment 1b), reflecting operation of face-specific mechanisms. In Experiment 2, we investigated whether motion affects infants perception of faces in Mooney faces. We found that when the faces appeared to be rigidly moving, infants did show an upright preference in conditions of low visibility of local features (Experiment 2a). Again the preference disappeared when the contrast polarity of the image was reversed (Experiment 2b). Together, these results suggest that young infants have the ability to integrate fragmented image features to perceive faces from two-tone face images, especially if they are moving. This suggests that an interaction between motion and form rather than a purely motion-based process (e.g., structure from motion) facilitates infants' perception of faces in ambiguous two-tone images. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
• Do infants recognize the Arcimboldo images as faces? Behavioral and near-infrared spectroscopic study
  Megumi Kobayashi; Yumiko Otsuka; Emi Nakato; So Kanazawa; Masami K. Yamaguchi; Ryusuke Kakigi
  JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL CHILD PSYCHOLOGY, ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE, 111, 1, 22, 36, 2012, Joint Work, Arcimboldo images induce the perception of faces when shown upright despite the fact that only nonfacial objects such as vegetables and fruits are painted. In the current study, we examined whether infants recognize a face in the Arcimboldo images by using the preferential looking technique and near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). In the first experiment, we measured looking preference between upright and inverted Arcimboldo images among Sand 6-month-olds and 7- and 8-month-olds. We hypothesized that if infants perceive the Arcimboldo images as faces, they would prefer the upright images to the inverted ones. We found that only 7- and 8-month-olds significantly preferred upright images, suggesting that they could perceive the Arcimboldo images as faces. In the second experiment, we measured hemodynamic responses using NIRS. Based on the behavioral data, we hypothesized that 7- and 8-month-olds would show different neural activity for upright and inverted Arcimboldo images, as do adults. Therefore, we measured hemodynamic responses in 7- and 8-month-olds while they were looking at upright and inverted Arcimboldo images. Their responses were then compared with the baseline activation during the presentation of individual vegetables. We found that the concentration of oxyhemoglobin increased in the left temporal area during the presentation of the upright images compared with the baseline during the presentation of vegetables. The results of the two experiments suggest that (a) the ability to recognize the upright Arcimboldo images as faces develops at around 7 or 8 months of age and (b) processing of the upright Arcimboldo images is related to the left temporal area of the brain. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
• Do infants represent the face in a viewpoint-invariant manner? Neural adaptation study as measured by near-infrared spectroscopy
  Megumi Kobayashi; Yumiko Otsuka; Emi Nakato; So Kanazawa; Masami K. Yamaguchi; Ryusuke Kakigi
  FRONTIERS IN HUMAN NEUROSCIENCE, FRONTIERS RES FOUND, 5, 153, 1, 12, 2011, Joint Work, Recent adult functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies reported that face-sensitive cortical areas showed attenuated responses to the repeated presentation of an identical facial image compared to the presentation of different facial images (fMRI-adaptation effects: e.g., Andrews and Ewbank, 2004). Building upon this finding, the current study, employing the adaptation paradigm, used near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) to explore the neural basis of face processing in infants. In Experiment 1, we compared hemodynamic responses in the bilateral temporal regions during the repeated presentation of the same face (the same-face condition) and the sequential presentation of different faces (the different-face condition). We found that (1) hemodynamic responses in the channels around the 15 and 16 regions increased during the presentation of different faces compared to those during the presentation of different objects; and that (2) these channels showed significantly lower response in the same-face condition than in the different-face condition, demonstrating the neural adaptation effect in 5- to 8-month-olds as measured by NIRS. In Experiment 2, when faces in both the same-face and different-face conditions were changed in viewpoint, lower hemodynamic responses in the same-face condition were found in 7- to 8-month-olds but not in 5- to 6-month-olds. Our results suggest that faces are represented in a viewpoint-invariant manner in 7- and 8-month-old infants.
• Distinct differences in the pattern of hemodynamic response to happy and angry facial expressions in infants - A near-infrared spectroscopic study
  Emi Nakato; Yumiko Otsuka; So Kanazawa; Masami K. Yamaguchi; Ryusuke Kakigi
  NEUROIMAGE, ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE, 54, 2, 1600, 1606, 2011, Joint Work, Recognition of other people's facial expressions of emotion plays an important role in social communication in infants as well as adults. Evidence from behavioral studies has demonstrated that the ability to recognize facial expressions develops by 6 to 7 months of age. Although the regions of the infant brain involved in processing facial expressions have not been investigated. neuroimaging studies in adults have revealed that several areas including the superior temporal sulcus (STS) participate in the processing of facial expressions. To examine whether the temporal area overlying the STS is responsible for the processing of facial expressions in infants, near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) was used to measure the neural activity in the temporal area overlying the STS as infants looked at happy and angry faces. NIRS provides a non-invasive means of estimating cerebral blood flow in the human brain and does not require severe constraints of head-movement. According to the International 10-20 system for EEG electrode placement, the measurement area was located in the bilateral temporal area centered at positions T5 and T6, which correspond to the STS. The time-course of the average change in total-Hb concentration revealed a clear difference in the pattern of hemodynamic responses to happy and angry faces. The hemodynamic response increased gradually when infants looked at happy faces and was activated continuously even after the disappearance of the face. In contrast, the hemodynamic responses for angry faces increased during the presentation of angry faces, then decreased rapidly after the face disappeared. Moreover, the left temporal area was significantly activated relative to the baseline when infants looked at happy faces, while the right temporal area was significantly activated for angry faces. These findings suggest hemispheric differences in temporal areas during the processing of positive and negative facial expressions in infants. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
• I know this face: Neural activity during mother' face perception in 7-to 8-month-old infants as investigated by near-infrared spectroscopy
  Emi Nakato; Yumiko Otsuka; So Kanazawa; Masami K. Yamaguchi; Yukiko Honda; Ryusuke Kakigi
  EARLY HUMAN DEVELOPMENT, ELSEVIER IRELAND LTD, 87, 1, 1, 7, 2011, Joint Work, Previously, we used near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) to measure infant's brain activity during face processing by detecting changes in hemodynamic responses, oxy-Hb, deoxy-Hb, and total-Hb concentrations [1,2]. We found that the right temporal cortex of the brain was activated when infants looked at upright frontal faces rather than inverted faces, and at the frontal view as well as the profile view on 8-month-olds. In the present study, we investigated 7- and 8-month-olds' brain activity related to the perception of mother's and stranger's faces by NIRS. The finding was that oxy-Hb and total-Hb concentrations in the right temporal cortex increased against the baseline during presentation of the mother's face. For strangers' faces, the total-Hb concentration in the right temporal cortex was greater than the baseline. By contrast, oxy- and total-Hb concentrations in the left temporal cortex increased only in the presentation of mother's face. The great activity in the right temporal region for faces irrespective of familiarity was consistent with a predominance of the right temporal cortex found previously in infants 11,21 as well as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies in adults (3,4 In contrast to the activity in the right temporal cortex, the greater hemodynamic response in the left temporal cortex was observed only in the mother's face condition. These findings suggest that the processing of the mother's face enhances activity in bilateral temporal cortex. This is the first study to clarify the location of brain activity in infants related to the perception of their mother's face. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
• Perception of surface glossiness by infants aged 5 to 8 months
  Jiale Yang; Yumiko Otsuka; So Kanazawa; Masami K. Yamaguchi; Isamu Motoyoshi
  PERCEPTION, PION LTD, 40, 12, 1491, 1502, 2011, Joint Work, We examined glossiness perception in infants using a preferential looking paradigm. In experiment 1, the images of two doll-shaped objects with matte and glossy surfaces were presented to infants aged 5 to 6 and 7 to 8 months. The results showed that the 7 to 8 month olds, but not the 5 to 6 month olds, looked significantly longer at the glossy object than at the matte object. In experiment 2, we additionally employed an object that was matte and covered with textures of white paint splashes, whose luminance histogram was almost identical to that of the glossy object. The results showed that the 7 to 8 month old infants could discriminate between the glossy object and the textured object even though both had similar luminance histograms. Qualitatively similar results were obtained for simple spheres that did not contain facial features. Therefore, the results of experiments 1 and 2 were not due to differences in the visibility of the dolls' facial features. These findings suggest that 7 to 8 month old infants perceive difference between glossy objects and matte objects on the basis of surface representations.
• The hollow-face illusion in infancy: do infants see a screen based rotating hollow mask as hollow?
  Aki Tsuruhara; Emi Nakato; Yumiko Otsuka; So Kanazawa; Masami K. Yamaguchi; Harold Hill
  I-PERCEPTION, PION LTD, 2, 5, 418, 427, 2011, Joint Work, We investigated whether infants experience the hollow-face illusion using a screen-based presentation of a rotating hollow mask. In experiment 1 we examined preferential looking between rotating convex and concave faces. Adults looked more at the concave-illusory convex-face which appears to counter rotate. Infants of 7- to 8-month-old infants preferred the convex face, and 5- to 6-month-olds showed no preference. While older infants discriminate, their preference differed from that of adults possibly because they don't experience the illusion or counter rotation. In experiment 2 we tested preference in 7- to 8-month-olds for angled convex and concave static faces both before and after habituation to the stimuli shown in experiment 1. The infants showed a novelty preference for the static shape opposite to the habituation stimulus, together with a general preference for the static convex face. This shows that they discriminate between convex and concave faces and that habituation to either transfers across a change in view. Seven-to eight-month-olds have been shown to discriminate direction of rigid rotation on the basis of perspective changes. Our results suggest that this, perhaps together with a weaker bias to perceive faces as convex, allows these infants to see the screen-based hollow face as hollow even though adults perceive it as convex.
• Infants' recognition of objects using canonical color
  Atsushi Kimura; Yuji Wada; Jiale Yang; Yumiko Otsuka; Ippeita Dan; Tomohiro Masuda; So Kanazawa; Masami K. Yamaguchi
  JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL CHILD PSYCHOLOGY, ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE, 105, 3, 256, 263, 2010, Joint Work, We explored infants' ability to recognize the canonical colors of daily objects, including two color-specific objects (human face and fruit) and a non-color-specific object (flower), by using a preferential looking technique. A total of 58 infants between 5 and 8 months of age were tested with a stimulus composed of two color Pictures of an object placed side by side: a correctly colored Picture (e.g., Fed strawberry) and an inappropriately colored picture (e.g., green-blue strawberry). The results showed that, overall, the 6- to 8-month-olds showed preference for the Correctly colored pictures for color-specific objects, whereas they did not show preference for the correctly colored pictures for the non-color-specific object. The 5-month-olds showed no significant preference for the correctly colored pictures for all object conditions. These findings imply that the recognition, of canonical color for objects emerges at 6 months of age. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
• Perception of the Ebbinghaus illusion in 5- to 8- month old infants.
  Yamazaki, Y; Otsuka, Y; Kanazawa, S; Yamaguchi, M.K
  Japanese Psychological Research, 52, 33, 40, 2010, Joint Work
• How do infants perceive scrambled face?: A near-infrared spectroscopic study
  Yukiko Honda; Emi Nakato; Yumiko Otsuka; So Kanazawa; Shozo Kojima; Masami K. Yamaguchi; Ryusuke Kakigi
  BRAIN RESEARCH, ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV, 1308, 137, 146, 2010, Joint Work, Using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), we recorded changes of oxy-Hb, deoxy-Hb, and total-Hb in 7- to 8-month-old infants' and adults' brains in response to canonical face and scrambled face stimuli. Using a newly developed probe for NIRS recording, which was light and soft enough to be tolerated by infants, we were able to acquire data from the very young even in the awake state. Total-Hb in response to a canonical face stimulus was greater than for scrambled face stimuli only in the right hemisphere in infants. This indicates the presence of right hemisphere dominance of brain activity in response to face images in 7- to 8-month-old infants. in adults, oxy-Hb and total-Hb were significantly increased from baseline only for the canonical face in the right hemisphere. There were greater numbers of channels showing significantly increased activity for the canonical face in the right than in the left hemisphere. These data indicate that the right hemisphere is more dominant for canonical face perception in both infants and adults. However, overall, the increase of total-Hb and oxy-Hb in adults was modest compared to infants. Although the reason for the difference between infants and adults is unclear, in addition to developmental changes influencing face perception, some methodological problems may be present. Thus, because we recorded NIRS signals in infants and adults using the same method, anatomical and physiological problems might affect the results to some degree. Although comparing the results between infants and adults is not simple, the present study is the first to indicate how 7- to 8-month-old infants perceive scrambled face stimuli and to compare such results with those of adults in order to understand developmental changes in face perception. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
• Perception of illusory shift of gaze direction by infants
  Emi Nakato; Yumiko Otsuka; Hiroko Konuma; So Kanazawa; Masami K. Yamaguchi; Masaki Tomonaga
  INFANT BEHAVIOR & DEVELOPMENT, ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC, 32, 4, 422, 428, 2009, Joint Work, Detection of others' gaze direction is ail essential tool in everyday communication. As the gaze direction is analyzed rapidly and automatically, we hardly notice how we are performing this task. Wollaston's illusion [Wollaston, W. H. (1824). Oil the apparent direction of eye in a portrait. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Series B, 114, 247-256] provides us the chance to understand ail aspect of this problem, in which the change in orientation of the face results in the shift of the perceived gaze direction. This illusion suggests that we analyze others' gaze directions by integrating information from eyes and that from face. By using Wollaston's illusion, we examined how 6- to 8-month-old infants process gaze direction in upright and inverted faces. Our results suggest that 8-month-olds process gaze direction in terms of the orientation of the face, and perceive ail illusory shift of the gaze direction in Wollaston's illusion when the face was shown in ail upright orientation. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
• Recognition of Moving and Static Faces by Young Infants
  Yumiko Otsuka; Yukuo Konishi; So Kanazawa; Masami K. Yamaguchi; Herve Abdi; Alice J. O'Toole
  CHILD DEVELOPMENT, WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC, 80, 4, 1259, 1271, 2009, Joint Work, This study compared 3- to 4-month-olds' recognition of previously unfamiliar faces learned in a moving or a static condition. Infants in the moving condition showed successful recognition with only 30 s familiarization, even when different images of a face were used in the familiarization and test phase (Experiment 1). In contrast, infants in the static condition showed successful recognition only when the familiarization duration was lengthened to 90 s and when the same image was used between the familiarization and test phase (Experiments 2 and 3). Furthermore, presentation of multiple static images of a face did not yield the same level of performance as the moving condition (Experiment 4). These results suggest that facial motion promotes young infants' recognition of unfamiliar faces.
• Sound enhances detection of visual target during infancy: A study using illusory contours
  Yuji Wada; Nobu Shirai; Yumiko Otsuka; Akira Midorikawa; So Kanazawa; Ippeita Dan; Masami K. Yamaguchi
  JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL CHILD PSYCHOLOGY, ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE, 102, 3, 315, 322, 2009, Joint Work, In adults, a salient tone embedded in a sequence of nonsalient tones improves detection of a synchronously and briefly presented visual target in a rapid, visually distracting sequence. This phenomenon indicates that perception from one sensory modality can be influenced by another one even when the latter modality provides no information about the judged property itself However, no study has revealed the age-related development of this kind of cross-modal enhancement. Here we tested the effect of concurrent and unique sounds on detection of illusory contours during infancy. We used a preferential looking technique to investigate whether audio-visual enhancement of the detection of illusory contours could be observed at 5, 6, and 7 months of age. A significant enhancement, induced by sound, of the preference for illusory contours was observed only in the 7-month-olds. These results suggest that audio-visual enhancement in visual target detection emerges at 7 months of age. (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
• When Do Infants Differentiate Profile Face From Frontal Face? A Near-Infrared Spectroscopic Study
  Emi Nakato; Yumiko Otsuka; So Kanazawa; Masami K. Yamaguchi; Shoko Watanabe; Ryusuke Kakigi
  HUMAN BRAIN MAPPING, WILEY-LISS, 30, 2, 462, 472, 2009, Joint Work, The objective of the present study was to determine whether a developmental difference occurs in brain activity when infants look at frontal and profile views using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), which is an optical imaging technique used to measure changes in the concentrations of oxyhemoglobin (oxy-Hb), deoxyhemoglobin (deoxy-Hb), and total hemoglobin (total-Hb). For this objective, we compared NIRS results in two age groups, 5- and 8-month-old infants, while they were looking at frontal views, profile views, and objects. We found that the concentration of oxy-Hb and total-Hb in the 5-month-old group increased for only frontal views in the right temporal regions. In contrast, the concentration of oxy-Hb and total-Hb in the 8-month-old group increased for both frontal and profile views in the right temporal regions. Therefore, the present study indicated that the right hemisphere was dominant for the perception of profile views as well as frontal views. In addition, the most important and interesting finding was that the infants' brain activity of the face area would become view-invariant at the age of 8 months but not at 5 months. The developmental period for view-invariant face recognition has been discussed in previous psychological studies, but this is the first objective study to confirm that the period is between 5- and 8-months by measuring the blood flow in the brain using NIRS. Hum Brain Mapp 30:462-472, 2009. (C) 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
• The Effect of Occlusion on Motion Integration in Infants
  Yumiko Otsuka; Yukuo Konishi; So Kanazawa; Masami K. Yamaguchi
  JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY-HUMAN PERCEPTION AND PERFORMANCE, AMER PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOC, 35, 1, 72, 82, 2009, Joint Work, Previous psychophysical studies have shown that the adult human visual system makes use of form information such as occlusion to determine whether to integrate or segregate local motion signals (J. McDermott, Y. Weiss, & E. H. Adelson, 2001). Using the displays developed by McDermott et al., these experiments examined whether occlusion and amodal completion affect motion integration in infants. After familiarizing infants with the displays, infants were tested for preference between coherent motion and local motion displays. The results indicate that 5- to 8-month-olds, but not 3-month-olds, showed a significantly greater preference for the local motion display under occlusion conditions. These results suggest that 5- to 8-month-olds perceive motion to be coherent under occlusion conditions. The results are compatible with previous data showing that amodal completion of static information emerges at around 5-6 months of age (Y. Otsuka et al.. 2006a). adding that infants use amodal completion for motion integration at this same time.
• Infants' sensitivity to shading and line junctions
  Tomoko Imura; Masami K. Yamaguchi; So Kanazawa; Nobu Shirai; Yumiko Otsuka; Masaki Tomonaga; Akihiro Yagi
  VISION RESEARCH, PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD, 48, 12, 1420, 1426, 2008, Joint Work, We examined the sensitivity to shading and line junction cues in human infants aged 5-8 months using computer-gene rated displays containing a rectangular-wave grating and a serrated aperture. In Experiment 1, infants were presented with a pair of displays: a two-dimensional to three-dimensional (2D-3D) display, alternating between 2D and 3D images, and a 2D-2D display, alternating between two 2D images. The 3D image consisted of black-and-white borders aligned with the peaks of a serrated aperture, creating the appearance of a 3D folded surface. The 2D image consisted of the black-and-white borders misaligned with the peaks of a serrated aperture, which does not create a 3D impression for adults. Seven- and 8-month-old infants looked longer at the 2D-3D display than the 2D-2D display. In contrast, 5- and 6-month-old infants did not exhibit a looking preference. In Experiment 2, we used images with double-cycle rectangular-wave gratings to impair shading information. These images consisted of black-and-white borders aligned with half of the peaks and misaligned with latter half of the peaks of a serrated aperture, giving the appearance of surface markings. Seven- and 8-month-old infants did not exhibit a significant difference in preference between the two test displays. These results could not be explained by the young infant's failure of discrimination due to the experimental procedure (Experiment 3). These results showed that the sensitivity to shading and line junctions change between 5-6 and 7-8 months of age. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
• The perception of illusory transparent surfaces in infancy: Early emergence of sensitivity to static pictorial cues
  Yumiko Otsuka; Yuka Yamazaki; Yukuo Konishi; So Kanazawa; Masami K. Yamaguchi; Branka Spehar
  JOURNAL OF VISION, ASSOC RESEARCH VISION OPHTHALMOLOGY INC, 8, 16, 6.1, 12, 2008, Joint Work, Most developmental studies consistently show that sensitivity to purely pictorial cues to perceptual organization emerges around 6-7 months of age (e. g. B. I. Bertenthal, J. J. Campos, & M. M. Haith, 1980). Here, we show evidence for an early emergence of visual completion using purely static two-dimensional pictorial information. By using preferential looking technique, we examined whether 3-4 and 5-6 month-olds perceive illusory transparent surface which is induced by a newly developed mixed polarity Kanizsa configuration. Our results suggest that 3-4 and 5-6 month-olds discriminate and prefer the transparent Kanizsa configuration both from its rotated counterpart, and from the non-transparent Kanizsa configuration. Our stimuli and experimental manipulation exclude the possibility that these responses were based on the geometrical properties of the figure or the local contrast difference between the figures. Our finding suggests the sensitivity for surface segmentation based solely on two-dimensional cues in both 3-4 and 5-6 month olds.
• Neural activation to upright and inverted faces in infants measured by near infrared spectroscopy
  Yumiko Otsuka; Emi Nakato; So Kanazawa; Masami K. Yamaguchi; Shoko Watanabe; Ryusuke Kakigi
  NEUROIMAGE, ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE, 34, 1, 399, 406, 2007, Joint Work, The present study examined infants' brain activity in response to upright and inverted faces using near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), which can non-invasively record hemodynamic changes of the brain. MRS is particularly useful for recording in infants, since recordings can be made, even while the infants are awake, without fixing their body and brain. For this objective, we used newly developed sensor probes of MRS for recording in infants. We measured changes in cerebral oxygenation in 10 5-8-month-olds' left and right lateral areas while they were looking at upright and inverted faces. The results are summarized as follows: (1) the concentration of oxyhemoglobin (oxyHb) and total hemoglobin (total-Hb) increased significantly in the right lateral area during the upright face condition, (2) the concentration of total-Hb in the right lateral area differed significantly between the upright and inverted conditions, (3) hemodynamic changes were maximal in the temporal region, probably in the superior temporal sulcus (STS) in both hemispheres, and (4) the right hemisphere seems to be more important for recognizing upright faces. This is the first evidence showing that there is an inter-hemispheric difference on the effect of face inversion in the infant brain using a hemodynamic method. (c) 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
• Perception of motion transparency in 5-month-old infants
  So Kanazawa; Nobu Shirai; Yumiko Otsuka; Masami K. Yamaguchi
  PERCEPTION, PION LTD, 36, 1, 145, 156, 2007, Joint Work, We investigated the perceptual development of motion transparency in 3- to 5-month-old infants. In two experiments we tested a total of 55 infants and examined their preferential looking behaviour. In experiment 1, we presented transparent motion as a target, and uniform motion as a non-target consisting of random-dot motions. We measured the time during which infants looked at the target and non-target stimuli. In experiment 2, we used paired-dot motions (Qian et al, 1994 Journal of Neuroscience 14 7357 - 7366) as non-targets and also measured target looking time. We calculated the ratio of the target looking time to the total target and no-target looking time. In both experiments we controlled the dot size, speed, the horizontal travel distance of the dots, and the motion pattern of the dots. The results demonstrated that 5-month-old infants showed a statistically significant preference for motion transparency in almost all stimulus conditions, whereas the preference in 3- and 4-month-old infants depended on stimulus conditions. These results suggest that the sensitivity to motion transparency was robust in 5-month-olds, but not in 3- and 4-month-olds.
• Perception of motion trajectory of object from the moving cast shadow in infants
  T Imura; MK Yamaguchi; S Kanazawa; N Shirai; Y Otsuka; M Tomonaga; A Yagi
  VISION RESEARCH, PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD, 46, 5, 652, 657, 2006, Joint Work, A moving cast shadow of the object affects the perception of the object's trajectory in adults [Kersten, D., Mamassian, P., & Knill, D. C. (1997). Moving cast shadow induce apparent motion in depth. Perception, 26, 171-192]. In the present study, we investigated by using a habituation-dishabituation procedure whether infants at 4- to 7-months old discriminate the motion trajectory of a ball from the moving shadow it casts. In Experiment 1, 4- to 5-month-old and 6- to 7-month-old were tested for ability to discriminate between a "depth" display containing a ball and a cast shadow with a diagonal trajectory and an "up" display containing a ball with a diagonal trajectory and a cast shadow with a horizontal trajectory. Six- and 7-month-old, but not 4- and 5-month-old, infants looked significantly longer at the "up" display than at the "depth" display. In Experiment 2, we tested whether 4- to 5-month-old and 6- to 7-month-old infants would perceive "up" motion as categorically different from "depth" depending on the object's 3-D trajectory. We used displays containing a ball and a cast shadow with the same trajectories as those in Experiment I except that the cast shadows appeared above the ball. These displays did not produce 3-D impressions in adults. Neither age group of infants exhibited significant differences between "up" and "depth" displays. When the results from the two experiments are considered, 6- and 7-month-old infants discriminated the motion trajectory of the ball from the moving cast shadows. This developmental emergence of depth perception from a moving cast shadow at 6 months of age is consistent with that of other pictorial depth cues. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
• Development of modal and amodal completion in infants
  Yumiko Otsuka; So Kanazawa; Masami K. Yamaguchi
  PERCEPTION, PION LTD, 35, 9, 1251, 1264, 2006, Joint Work, Visual completion has been divided into two types: modal and amodal. While psychophysical studies with adults provided several common properties between modal and amodal completion, studies with infants showed differential trends in the development of these perceptual abilities. In the present study, we further examined the development of these two kinds of visual completion in infants aged 3 to 6 months. We created a display composed of a partially overlapping circle and square. The display induced either modal or amodal completion depending on the colour. Infants were familiarised with either the modal or the amodal display. After this familiarisation, the infants were tested on their discrimination between the complete figure and the broken figure. If the infants could perceptually complete the figures in the familiarisation display, they were expected to show a novelty preference for the broken figure. A total of thirty-two infants participated in the present study. Our results suggest that modal completion develops by 3 - 4 months of age, whereas amodal completion develops by 5 - 6 months of age.
• Perceptual transparency in 3-to 4-month-old infants
  Yumiko Otsuka; So Kanazawa; Masami K. Yamaguchi
  PERCEPTION, PION LTD, 35, 12, 1625, 1636, 2006, Joint Work, We examined perceptual transparency in infants. In a previous study, Johnson and Aslin (2000 Developmental Psychology 36 808-816) found that 4-month-olds could perceive transparency in a moving chromatic display, but not in an achromatic display. In this study, we further examined perceptual transparency in infants using a static achromatic display. Considering the development of figural organisation and contrast sensitivity, we assumed that 3- to 4-month-olds would perceive transparency even in a static achromatic display We created a transparency and a non-transparent display composed of a partially overlapping circle and square, by switching the colours. Infants aged 3 to 4 months (n = 24) were familiarised with the transparency display (experiment 1) or with the non-transparent display (experiment 2). Then, they were confronted with a uniform colour and a two-colour figure. Infants showed novelty preference for the two-colour figure after they had been familiarised with the transparency display (experiment 1), but not after they had been familiarised with the non-transparent display (experiment 2). These results suggest that 3- to 4-month-old infants can perceive transparency in a static achromatic display.
• The effect of motion information on infants' recognition of unfamiliar faces(Summary of Awarded Presentation at the 23rd Annual Meeting)
  OTSUKA Yumiko; KANAZAWA So; YAMAGUCHI Masami K.; O'TOOLE Alice J.; ABDI Herve
  The Japanese Journal of Psychonomic Science, The Japanese Psychonomic Society, 24, 1, 125, 126, 2005, Not refereed, Joint Work, We examined the role of motion information on infants' recognition of unfamiliar faces. Previous studies suggested that motion information promotes infants' perception (Kellman & Spelke, 1983; Otsuka & Yamaguchi, 2003), and therefore we theorized that motion information should facilitate infants' face recognition. In the present study, we compared infants' recognition memory for unfamiliar faces learned in a moving or a static condition. Infants aged 3- to 5-months (N=24) were familiarized with a smiling female face either in the moving or static condition. After familiarization, infants were tested using a pair of novel and familiar female faces. We found that the infants showed a significant preference for novel faces only in the moving condition. The present results suggest that learning from the moving condition promotes infants' recognition of unfamiliar faces.
• The effect of support ratio on infants' perception of illusory contours
  Y Otsuka; S Kanazawa; MK Yamaguchi
  PERCEPTION, PION LTD, 33, 7, 807, 816, 2004, Joint Work, We used a preferential looking technique to investigate the effect of support ratio (a ratio of the physically specified contours to the total edge length) on the perception of Kanizsa illusory contours in infants aged 3-8 months. Previous work has shown that for adult observers the illusory-contour strength increases proportionally with the support ratio. When the support ratio was relatively high (66%), infants preferred illusory contours to non-illusory Figures by 3-4 months of age (experiment 1). In contrast, only infants 7-8 months old showed this preference for illusory contours when the support ratio was reduced to 37% (experiment 3). Further, infants showed no preference for an outline version of the illusory-contour figure, which produced no illusory contours (experiment 2). This result confirms that the infants' preference reflects their perception of illusory contours. Our results show that (i) illusory-contour perception emerges at around 3-4 months of age, but (ii) that this ability is very limited until around 7-8 months of age.
• Infants' perception of illusory contours in static and moving figures
  Y Otsuka; MK Yamaguchi
  JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL CHILD PSYCHOLOGY, ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE, 86, 3, 244, 251, 2003, Joint Work, We investigated 3-8-month-olds' (N = 62) perception of illusory contours in a Kanizsa figure by using a preferential looking technique. Previous studies suggest that this ability develops around 8 months of age. However, we hypothesized that even 3-4-month-olds could perceive illusory contours in a moving figure. To check our hypothesis, we created an illusory contour figure in which the illusory square underwent lateral movement. By rotating the elements of this figure, we created non-illusory contour figures. We found that: (1) infants preferred moving illusory contours to non-illusory contours by 3-4 months of age, and (2) only 7-8-month-olds preferred static illusory contours. Our findings demonstrate that motion information promotes infants' perception of illusory contours. Our results parallel those reported in the study of partly occluded objects (Kellman & Spelke. 1983). (C) 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Books etc

• 2022
• 2021
• 2021
• 2020
• 2019
• 2018
• 2017
• Development of recognition memory for faces during infancy. In T. Tsukiura & S. Umeda (Eds.) Memory in Social Context: Brain, Mind, and Society
  Yumiko Otsuka
  Springer, 2017
• 2015
• 2015
• 2013
• 2013
• 2012
• 2011
• 2010
• 2008
• 2008

Conference Activities & Talks

• 2023, Joint Work
• 2023, Joint Work
• 2022, Joint Work
• 2022, Single Work
• 2022, Joint Work
• 2022, Single Work
• 2022, Joint Work
• 2021, Joint Work
• 2021, Single Work
• 2021, Joint Work
• 2021, Joint Work
• 2021, Joint Work
• 2019, Joint Work
• Gaze adaptation induced by the bloodshot illusion
  Otsuka, Y; Palmer, C; Watanabe, K; Clifford C
  42nd edition of the European Conference on Visual Perception, 2019, Joint Work
• 2018, Joint Work
• 2018, Joint Work
• How does head orientation influence perceived gaze direction from each of the two eyes? Psychophysical experiments and analysis of geometrical cues in the stimulus eye region
  Yumiko Otsuka; Colin W; G. Clifford
  41st European Conference on Visual Perception (Trieste, Italy), 2018, Joint Work
• Do Infants Have Direct Gaze Prior?
  Yumiko Otsuka
  The 41st Annual Meeting of the Japan Neuroscience Society, Symposium "Neural basis for emergence of individuality and face-body expression", 2018, Joint Work, Kobe Convention Center, Kobe (Japan)
• 2018, Joint Work
• 2017, Joint Work
• The influence of head orientation on perceived gaze direction and eye region information
  Yumiko Otsuka; Colin Clifford
  13th Asia Pacific Conference on Vision, 2017, Joint Work
• 2016, Joint Work
• The dual-route model of the influence of head orientation on eye gaze perception
  Yumiko Otsuka; Isabelle Mareschal; Colin W; G. Clifford
  The 31st International Congress of Psychology, Invited Symposium "The many faces of face perception", 2016, Joint Work
• Spatial and temporal stimulus characteristics eliciting attention to faces in early infancy
  Yumiko Otsuka; Hiroko Ichikawa; So Kanazawa; Masami K Yamaguchi
  The 31st International Congress of Psychology, Invited Symposium "Cultural and social factors in the development of face recognition", 2016, Joint Work
• 2016, Joint Work
• 2015, Single Work
• 2015, Joint Work
• 2015, Joint Work
• Uncertainty and bias in estimation of the sex and age of faces
  Tamara Watson; Yumiko Otsuka; Colin Clifford
  Vision Sciences Society 15th Annual Meeting, 2015, Joint Work
• 2014, Single Work

Misc

• 2022
• 77, 2016
• 34, 1, 192, 192, 2015
• 116, 29, 16, 22, 2008
• 7, 1, 3, 9, 2007

Other Research Activities

Awards & Honors

• 2022, Nobu Shirai, Mizuki Kawai, Tomoko Imura, & Yumiko Otsuka
• 2021
• 2021
• 2018
• 2008
• 2005

Research Grants & Projects

• Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
  Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
  Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C), On the development of the information integration in eye gaze perception, 2022, 2022, 2026, 22K03212
• 2017, 2017, 2021
• 2017, 2017, 2020
• 2015, 2015, 2017