Dr. Takashi Yamauchi

Associate Professor
Ph.D. Columbia University (1997)

Department of Psychology
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX 77843-4235

Office: 257 Psychology Building
email: tya@psyc.tamu.edu
Phone: (979) 845-2503
Fax: 979-845-4727
Web: http://peopl...-yamauchi/

• Cognitive Science: Inductive inference/Decision making
• Learning complex concepts
• Knowledge acquisition/Concept representation
• Mental model
• Cognitive modeling
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Visual object representation and recognition

My overall research direction is "concept and behavior." The following are my research questions:

1. What is the structure of "concepts"? How are the concepts we have influence our everyday behavior?
   
   We know that our behavior is dictated by the idea we have. We make judgments based on what we know, what we like, what we think good. So, in a way, the concepts and beliefs that we have pretty much dictate what we do. In this context, I am interested in the structure of our knowledge and concepts in general, and the way these concepts direct our behavior and judgments.
   
   So, what do I do to study the nature of human concepts and knowledge? Research directions; cognitive modeling, neural network, practical research related to economic decision making; empirical studies related to inductive judgments; study the link between human perception and cognition; examine the relationship between human concepts and memory; fMRI study; computer simulations.



2. How do language and concepts interact? What is the relationship between them?
   
   Language often molds the way we think. We think as we speak. But our thinking is more than our inner speech. How are the concept we have and language we have related?
   
   Research directions -- study children, brain damaged patients, cognitive modeling; study metaphors we form.



3. Concept, culture and art Culture is in a way a shared system of concepts that a group of people co-possess. How does culture arise out of human cognition and social interactions? How do the concepts we have affect our everyday interactions with others?

1. Yamauchi, T., Cooper, L. A., Hilton, H. J., Szerlip, N. J., Chen, H. C, & Barnhardt, T. M. (In Press). Priming for symmetry detection of three- dimensional figures: Central axes can prime symmetry detection separately from local components. Visual Cognition



2. Yamauchi, T. (2005). Labeling bias and categorical induction: Generative aspects of category information. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 31, 538-553.



3. Yu, Y., Yamauchi, T., & Choe, Y. (2004). Explaining low-level brightness- contrast illusions using disinhibition. In A. J. Ijspeert, D. Mange, and N. Shojiro (Ed). Biologically Inspired Approaches to Advanced Information Technology. (pp. LNCSXXX). New York: Springer.



4. Yamauchi, T., & McGuire, K. (2003). What does labeling do to stereotyping? Beyond prototypes and cognitive economy. In F. Salili & R. Hoosain (Eds). Teaching, Learning and Motivation in a Multicultural Context. Volume 3: Research in Multicultural Education and International perspectives. (pp. 315-344). Greenwich, CT: Information Age.



5. VanLehn, K., Siler, S., Murray, C., Yamauchi, T., & Baggett, W. B. (2003). Why do only some events cause learning during human tutoring?. Cognition and Instruction, 21 (3), 209-249.



6. Yamauchi, T. (2002). The self-organizing consciousness entails additional intervening subsystems. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 25, 360.



7. Yamauchi, T., Love, B. C., & Markman, A. B. (2002). Learning nonlinearly separable categories by inference and classification. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition, 28 (3), 585-593.

Yamauchi, T. (2000, August). Making inferences using non-linearly separable categories. Papare presented at the Twenty-Second Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, Philadelphia.

Yamauchi, T. (2002, October). What Do People Know About a Category? Category Label versus Category Features. Invited presentation at Trinity University. Paper presented at The Southwest Cognition Conference (ARMADILLO XIII). San Antonio, Texas.

Yamauchi, T. (2003, July). Determinants of category-based induction. Paper presented at the 8th International Cognitive Linguistic Conference (ICLA 2003), Universidad de La Rioja, Logrono, Spain.

Yamauchi, T. (2003, November). Decision strategies underlying classification and feature inference. Paper presented at the 44th Annual meeting of Psychonomic Society, Vancouver, Canada.

Undergraduate
PSYC 345 - Human Cognitive Processes
PSYC 320 - Sensation and Perception

Graduate
PSYC 689 - Language, Memory, and Knowledge Structure

Link to Vita