Current Research Projects
Funded by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)
- 2020-2023, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B): “The Embodied Self: From Minimal to Narrative” PI: Shogo Tanaka
Joint Research Projects
Funded by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)
- 2020-2022, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A): “Phenomenology of Alteration of Consciousness” PI: Shigeru Taguchi (Hokkaido University)
- 2017-2021, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A): “Laying the Philosophical Foundation for the Study of Case Studies in Ecological Phenomenology and Building an Archive” PI: Tetsuya Kono (Rikkyo University)
- 2019-2021, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B): “Embodiment and Sociality in Human Services and Therapies: Orality Research of Dialogue Spaces” PI: Kohji Ishihara (The University of Tokyo)
- 2018-2021, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B): “Designing the learning environments based on the eco-psychological approach for students with diverse difficulties” PI: Naohisa Mori (Sapporo Gakuin University)
- 2018-2020, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C): “Facilitating the process of motor learning in sports and art by stimulating brain stem in a non-invasive method” PI: Hiroshi Yamada (Tokai University)
Past Research Projects
Funded by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)
2020-2021, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas: Construction of the face-body studies in transcultural conditions, “The Embodied Self under Transcultural Conditions” PI: Shogo Tanaka
This project intended to critically examine the discourse on the notion of "Japanese Self" in cross-cultural psychology from an embodied perspective. As the planned field work could not be conducted due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we conducted the alternative program on a literature review focusing on "Taijin Kyofusho" that has been considered as culture-bound syndrome in Japanese psychiatry. What we found through a literature review, Taijin Kyofusho is not really considered as a culture-bound syndrome but as a subtype of social anxiety disorder commonly seen in the world. Under the current global transcultural context, diverse culture-bound syndrome could be found as global psychiatric disorders.
2015-2019, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B): “Embodied Human Science: Ideas and development” PI: Shogo Tanaka
[Summary] This research project was intended to propose the basic theories of the embodied human science, which brings the paradigm of embodied cognition into the phenomenology-based human sciences. During the funding period, we attempted to mainly explicate (a) the self that is founded on the embodied actions, (b) the social cognition that is founded on the embodied interactions between self and others. The single-authored book titled “In search of the lived self” (Tanaka, 2017) represents the major research results for the lay people.
2016-2017, Fund for the Promotion of Joint International Research: “Embodied Human Science” PI: Shogo Tanaka
[Summary] “Embodied Human Science” is a research project that aims to propose a new framework of human science based on phenomenology of embodiment. In this joint international research, we focused on one of the two major issues of this project: constitution of the reflective self-consciousness. In order to explicate our standard experience of self-reflection, we investigated the pathological experience of self-reflection in depersonalization, in which the patients often report that their sense of self is detached from the body. By analyzing diverse cases of the symptom described by the patients themselves, it is suggested that the depersonalization is an extraordinary experience of self-reflection without tacit feeling of mineness that is normally involved in bodily experiences. Patients’ detached sense of self is mainly derived from the loss of body-ownership feeling.
2015-2017, Grant-in-Aid for challenging Exploratory Research: “Developing a theoretical model for self-awareness and social understanding based on qualitative research of perspective-exchange experiences” PI: Shogo Tanaka
[Summary] This project aims to propose a theoretical model of self-consciousness and social understanding on the basis of qualitative research on “perspective-conversion experience,” which is designed for a participant to experience one’s own body through visual perspectives located outside of it using video camera and HMD. Analyzing the interview data of eight participants, it is suggested that perspective-conversion experience may split the participant’s self-awareness into two: (a) the self that is identified with the outer perspective, and (b) the self that derives from somatosensory perception. Although we are accustomed to imagining ourselves from another person’s perspective in our daily life, visually perceiving our own body from outer perspectives could promote the spatial split and/or extension of the self.
2012-2014, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C): “A phenomenological and experimental study on the embodied knowledge in the intersubjective domain” PI: Shogo Tanaka
[Summary] This research project aims to illuminate social understanding that generates between person and person on the basis of embodied interactions. In the current discussions of psychological sciences, it is generally considered that one understands the other’s mental states through inference by applying the “theory of mind.” However, according to the research result, the most fundamental aspect of social understanding is to directly perceive the intention of another’s action, and to react in response to it. This kind of embodied interaction between the self and the other generates implicit social contexts, based on which we come to understand each other explicitly through verbal communications. In this regard, it is between my body and that of the other where intersubjectivity originates in.
2009-2011, Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B): “Developing a theoretical framework for embodied knowledge within the Life-world” PI: Shogo Tanaka
[Summary] Embodied knowledge is a type of knowledge where the body knows how to act (e.g., how to touch type). It is not confined only to motor skills but is concerned with the variety of human experiences which occur within the Lifeworld. This research project aimed to develop a theoretical framework for understanding the embodied knowledge inclusively, based on the phenomenological methodology. In order to achieve this goal, we described in detail the three major aspects of body schema: bodily movements, spatial behaviors, and bodily interactions. As a result of thorough descriptions, we made clear the process by which the body becomes the ‘knowing subject.’
