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Watanabe Lab
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A lab that uses science to uncover how the human mind works.
AboutAbout the lab
Exploring the human mind through science.
The Watanabe Lab takes the human mind as its subject of study.
Using cutting-edge methods from cognitive science, psychology, and neuroscience, the lab aims to scientifically uncover the conscious and unconscious processes that create the mind.
Through careful experiments, the lab shows that the world people believe to be certain is actually quite precarious.
The lab also investigates why people are nevertheless able to lead stable everyday lives.
Key terms
- Cognitive science
- A field that scientifically studies how people perceive, think about, and make judgments about things
- Unconscious
- Mental processes that occur without the person being aware of them
NewsLab news
A lab member received the Outstanding Presentation Award from the Japanese Psychonomic Society
A lab member received the Presentation Award at the 42nd Annual Meeting of the Japanese Cognitive Science Society
A lab member received the Best Paper Award from the Japanese Society of Sport Psychology
Research by Professor Watanabe's group was published in Nature Human Behaviour
ResearchResearch themes
The Watanabe Lab takes the human mind as its subject and uses methods from cognitive science, psychology, and neuroscience to uncover the conscious and unconscious processes that create the mind. Its themes are wide-ranging: distortions of subjective space and time, interactions between seeing and hearing, why skills improve, unconscious learning, unconscious imitation, unconscious preferences, measurement of cognitive and attentional functions through behavioral, physiological, and brain-function measures, changes in cognitive function associated with developmental disorders, and the study of "excuses."
*Illustrative imageBodily Sensations and the Mind
Sensations from inside the body, such as the heartbeat and stomach movement, influence how things look and how a person feels. The lab examines the link between body and mind by measuring stomach activity when people read a story with an unpleasant aftertaste, and how people experience an aversion to particular sounds.
*Illustrative imageReading Faces and Movements
People can't help reading all kinds of things from faces and body movements. Through experiments, the lab tests how the facial impressions of politicians affect voting decisions, how people judge gaze direction, and how emotions are read from dancers' movements.
*Illustrative imageThe Psychology of Skill and Imitation
People unconsciously imitate others' movements, and tend to make risky choices in situations involving physical movement. The lab investigates age-related changes in automatic imitation, biases in judgments about movement, and where improvisation in theater shows up.
MembersFaculty
The members of the Watanabe Lab are faculty, researchers, invited researchers, collaborating researchers, visiting researchers and visiting students, doctoral, master's, and undergraduate students, non-degree course students, and research assistants.As of 2026
- ProfessorKatsumi Watanabe
- LecturerMisako Kawahara
VoicesStudent voices
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Report an errorAbout the images
The top and research theme images are illustrative and were not taken at the lab. They are cropped from Wikimedia Commons images. Cropped CC BY-SA images are provided under the same CC BY-SA license as the original (version shown on each line).
- Top image: “DTI-sagittal-fibers” Thomas Schultz / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
- Bodily Sensations and the Mind: “12 lead ECG” Peterhcharlton / CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
- Reading Faces and Movements: “Motion Capture with Chad Phantom” Vazquez88 / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
- The Psychology of Skill and Imitation: “Improvisational theatre in Iran-Qom City-2018-Canon 5d Mark7” Mostafameraji / CC0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Kawahara Lab): “Faces of Resilience” Agasielisha1234 / CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Gunji Lab): “Physarum polycephalum” HelenGinger / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Oikawa Lab): “Spectrogram - Nine Inch Nails - My Violent Heart” Omegatron / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Ogata Lab): “Robot arm handles an assay plate” National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases / Public domain (cropped)
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