Center for Advanced Research on Logic and Sensibility

Center Director: Shigeru Watanabe (Professor, Faculty of Letters)

Primary Campus: Mita Campus

This center aims to clarify the following points regarding sensibility and logic, which form the basis of human judgment, and to foster young researchers to conduct such interdisciplinary research.

To achieve these goals, we operate several facilities for education and research. In collaboration with the graduate schools, we have established project-based courses with multiple supervisors as part of the graduate curriculum and regularly hold joint seminars for young researchers with our international partner institutions. Furthermore, we offer courses and support for writing academic papers in English to foster young researchers.

■ Activities Continuing from the Previous Fiscal Year: Background, Rationale, and Goals

Although fiscal year 2011 is the final year of this program, we will basically continue our educational and research activities to date while working to consolidate our achievements. However, due to expenditures related to the program's conclusion, the scale of activities will be reduced, and some seminars with international partner institutions will not be held.

■ New Activity Goals, Content, and Implementation Background for Fiscal Year 2011

As this is the final year, no new major projects will be launched. However, the annual large-scale international symposium will be positioned as the culmination of our five years of activity and will be held over three days, including participation from our international partner institutions.

■ Implementation Details, Research Outcomes, and Degree of Achievement Relative to the Fiscal Year Action Plan

As fiscal year 2011 is the final year, our central task is to integrate the research results to date and enable young researchers to present them. While we have held a large-scale international symposium every year, this year we will invite participation from all our international partner institutions for a three-day symposium held within Keio and will publish the results. In addition, project-based courses and other support activities for young researchers will continue as before. Regarding the future maintenance of the center, we will work in close cooperation with the university corporation to build a system that allows young researchers to continue their active research in the future.

In fiscal year 2010, full-scale NIRS measurements of newborns began, leading to unprecedented results. In animal research, a cognitive study on mutant mice conducted jointly with Kyushu University was published, and a joint press release was issued by the two universities. A study on the painting preferences of Bengalese finches was also announced via a press release; the results were reported at the "Pleasure of Beauty" symposium in Paris and presented via video at the Darwin Day Symposium in India. Additionally, this fiscal year, as a new initiative, we held a lecture course on neuroeconomics jointly with the Tamagawa University Global COE Program and Caltech, which led to productive discussions among many participants.