People

I have been a graduate student at Department of Psychology, Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University, since 2003. My main interests lie in social cognition, particularly cognitive mechanisms underlying altruistic behaviors. Specifically, I am interested in how non-human animals cooperate and help each other even at their cost. I have been studying experimentally-induced cooperation and communicative abilities (i.e. sensitivity to others’ attentional states or gaze) in tufted capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella).

I am continuing my research about cooperation with capuchins and began to study about their food sharing behaviors. I am working with chimpanzees and macaque infants as well, comparing their social cognition that would be suggested to underlie the altruistic behaviors.