Emotional Information Joint Research Laboratory

We seek for biological/psychological understanding on how animal communication including birdsong, human language, and rodent vocalizations are modulated by emotional and affective processes.

• Birdsong and human music are organized by small number of distinct syllables arranged in various sequences. We study behavioral and neural mechanisms that produce sequential varieties.
• Mechanisms for emotional information
  The most critical determinant of animal behavior is emotion. Emotion is a biological process of joy, anger, sad, and happy. Human affect is an interpretation of these biological emotions by language. We advance integrative studies of emotion to understand neural mechanisms and information characteristics of emotion.
• Biological origin of language
  Human is the only animal that use language, but sub-faculties that are enabling language should be descendent from non-human animals. Language maybe evolved from the interface between song system and emotion system. We also aim to construct theories for language emergence.

Publications

1. Ikebuchi, M., Nanbu, S., Okanoya, K., Suzuki, R., & Bischof, H.J.:
   "Very early development of Nucleus Taeniae of the amygdala."
   Brain, Behavior and Evolution, 55, 1-15. (2013)
2. Kamiyama, K., Abla, D., Iwanaga, K., & Okanoya, K.:
   "Interaction between musical emotion and facial expression as measured by event-related potentials."
   Neuropsychologia, 51, 500-505. (2013)
3. Fujimura, T., Matsuda, Y., Katahira, K., Okada, M., & Okanoya, K.:
   "Categorical and dimensional perceptions in decoding emotional facial expressions."
   Cognition & Emotion,26(4), 587-601. (2012)
4. Kagawa, H., Yamada, H., Lin, R.S., Mizuta, T., Hasegawa, T., & Okanoya, K.:
   "Ecological correlates of song complexity: a case study in white-rumped munias - the implication of relaxation of selection as a cause for signal variation in birdsong."
   Interaction Studies, 13(2), 263-284. (2012)
5. Okanoya, K.:
   "Behavioural factors governing song complexity in bengalese finches."
   International Journal of Comparative Psychology, 25, 44-59. (2012)
6. Sun, F., Hoshi-Shiba, R., Abla, D., & Okanoya, K.:
   "Neural correlates of abstract rule learning: An event-related potential study."
   Neuropsychologia, 50, 2617-2624. (2012).
7. Suzuki, K., Yamada, H., Kobayashi, T., & Okanoya, K.:
   "Decreased fecal corticosterone levels due to domestication: a comparison between the white-backed munia (Lonchura striata) and its domesticated strain, the Bengalese finch (Lonchura striata var. domestica) with a suggestion for complex song evolution."
   Journal of Experimental Zoology Part A: Ecological Genetics and Physiology, 317(9), 561-570. (2012)
8. ten Cate, C., & Okanoya, K.:
   "Revisiting the syntactic abilities of non-human animals: natural vocalizations and artificial grammar learning."
   Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 367, 1984-1994. (2012)
9. Yamazaki, Y., Suzuki, K., Inada, M., Iriki, A., & Okanoya, K.:
   "Sequential learning and rule abstraction in Bengalese finches."
   Animal Cognition, 15(3), 369-377. (2012)
10. Yosida, S., & Okanoya, K.:
    "Bilateral lesions of the medial frontal cortex disrupt recognition of social hierarchy during antiphonal communication in naked mole-rats (Heterocephalus glaber)."
    Journal of Comparative Physiology A, 198, 109-117. (2012)