Hiroki Yamamoto's Website

Hiroki Yamamoto, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, USA

Visiting Researcher, Graduate School of Human Sciences, The University of Osaka, Japan

Highlights

6 years of doctoral training and research (Fac. of Letters, Kyoto Univ.) in developmental psychology: Advancing current understanding of the context in which daily infant–caregiver gaze communication occurs and how it changes along with infants' development
Developed methods to record gaze communication between free-moving infant–caregiver dyads in home environment by using wearable eye-tracker worn by caregiver
Accomplished longitudinal data collection of gaze communication between the caregiver and the infant (range: 10–15.5 age in months) in multiple families' home environment
Adept in statistical programming, collaborated with researchers in various scientific fields and taught undergraduate courses in Statistics for 3 years

Research Interests

Development of infants’ naturalistic visual experiences
Structure of infants' body and environment that shapes their development
Evolution and development of gaze-based communication

Education

Department of Psychology, Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University Kyoto, Japan
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN LETTERS Mar. 2020
・Dissertation — The ecology of infant–caregiver gaze communication
・Advisor — Prof. Shoji Itakura

MASTER OF ARTS IN LETTERS Mar. 2014

Division of Biological Science, Faculty of Science, Kyoto University Kyoto, Japan
BACHELOR OF SCIENCE Mar. 2012　　　

Professional Experience

Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences,
Indiana University Bloomington, IN, USA
Postdoctral Researcher Feb. 2023 – Present

Department of Comparative and Developmental Psychology,
Graduate School of Human Sciences, The University of Osaka Osaka, Japan
Visiting Researcher Apr. 2022 – Present

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Tokyo, Japan
Overseas Research Fellow Feb. 2023 – Feb. 2025
・Host — Prof. Linda B. Smith (Indiana University)

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Tokyo, Japan
Research Fellow for Young Scientists (PD) Apr. 2022 – Feb. 2023
・Host — Prof. Takashi Hashimoto (Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology)

School of Knowledge Science,
Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST) Ishikawa, Japan
Postdoctoral Researcher Apr. 2022 – Feb. 2023

Department of Interdisciplinary Environment,
Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies, Kyoto University Kyoto, Japan
Postdoctoral Researcher Jun. 2021 – Mar. 2022

Department of Comparative and Developmental Psychology,
Graduate School of Human Sciences, The University of Osaka Osaka, Japan
Project Researcher Apr. 2021 – Mar. 2022

Department of Psychology, Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University Kyoto, Japan
Postdoctoral Researcher Apr. 2021 – Mar. 2022

Department of Psychology, Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University Kyoto, Japan
Assistant Research Staff Apr. 2017 – Mar. 2021

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Tokyo, Japan
Research Fellow for Yound Scientists (DC1) Apr. 2014 – Mar. 2017
・Host — Prof. Shoji Itakura (Kyoto University)

Publications

Yamamoto, H., Sunahara, N., & Kanakogi, Y. (2024). Face-looking as a real-time process in mind-mindedness: Timely coordination between mothers’ gaze on Infants’ faces and mind-related comments. Infancy. DOI: 10.1111/infa.12644
Meng, X., Okanda, M., Kanakogi, Y., Uragami, M., Yamamoto, H., & Moriguchi, Y. (2023). Gender stereotypes regarding power and niceness in Japanese children. Royal Society Open Science, 11, 230863. DOI: 10.1098/rsos.230863
Hagihara, H., Mizutani, T., Yamamoto, H., & Sakagami, M. (2023). Exploring young children’s vocabulary development trajectories using variational autoencoders (in Japanese). Cognitive Studies: Bulletin of the Japanese Cognitive Science Society, 30(4), 499–514. DOI: 10.11225/cs.2023.054
Yamamoto, H., Sato, A., & Itakura, S. (2023). Caregivers' monitoring of infant faces at Home: Developmental decrease in face looking, but not in face seeing. SSRN. [Preprint] October 5, 2023. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4591518
Hanya, G., Yoshihiro, S., Yamamoto, H., Ueda, Y., Kakuta, F., Hiraki, M., Otani, Y., Kurihara, Y., Kondo, Y., Hayaishi, S., Honda, T., Takakuwa, T., Koide, T., Sugaya, S., Yokota, T., Jin, S., Shiroishi, I., Fujino, M., Tachikawa, Y. (2023). Two-decade changes in habitat and abundance of Japanese macaques in primary and logged forests in Yakushima: Interim report. Forest Ecology and Management, 545, 121306. DOI:10.1016/j.foreco.2023.121306
Okanda, M., Meng, X., Kanakogi, Y., Uragami, M., Yamamoto, H., & Moriguchi, Y. (2022). Gender stereotypes about intellectual ability in Japanese children. Scientific Reports, 12, 16748. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-20815-2
Kanakogi, Y., Miyazaki, M., Takahashi, H., Yamamoto, H., Kobayashi.,T., & Hiraki, K. (2022). Third-party punishment by preverbal infants. Nature Human Behaviour, 6, 1234-1242. DOI: 10.1038/s41562-022-01354-2
Hagihara, H., Yamamoto, H., Moriguchi, Y, Sakagami, M. (2022). When “shoe” becomes free from “putting on”: The link between early meanings of object words and object-specific actions. Cognition, 226, 105177. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105177
Yamada, R., Yamamoto, H., Fujimoto, M., Hori, E., & Kanamori, M. (2022).Relationship between doctors' gaze behavior and simulated patient utterance volume: A study using wearable eye trackers (in Japanese). Journal of Japan Medicine Association, 31(2), 139-149.
Ueno, M., Yamamoto, H., Yamada, K., & Itakura, S. (2021). Individual recognition of monkey (Macaca fuscata) and human (Homo sapiens) images in primatologists. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 135(3), 394-405. DOI: 10.1037/com0000285
Yamamoto, H. (2020). An ecological approach to infants' visual experiences (in Japanese). Japanese Psychological Review, 63 (1), 102-117. DOI: 10.24602/sjpr.63.1_102
Yamamoto, H., Sato, A., & Itakura, S. (2020). Transition from crawling to walking changes gaze communication space in everyday infant–parent interaction. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 2987. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02987
Hanya, G., Morishima, K., Koide, T., Otani, Y., Hongo, S., Honda, T., Okamura, H., Higo, Y., Hattori, M., Kondo, Y., Kurihara, Y., Jin, S., Otake, A., Shiroisihi, I., Takakuwa, T., Yamamoto, H., Suzuki, H., Kajimura, H., Hayakawa, T., Suzuki-Hashido, N., & Nakano, T. (2019). Host selection of haematophagous leeches (Haemadipsa japonica): Implications for iDNA studies. Ecological Research, 34, 842-855. DOI: 10.1111/1440-1703.12059
Yamamoto, H., Sato, A., & Itakura, S. (2019). Eye tracking in an everyday environment reveals the interpersonal distance that affords infant–parent gaze communication. Scientific Reports, 9, 10352. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-46650-6

Conference Presentations

Yamamoto, H., Sato, A., Itakura, S., & Smith, L. B. (2025). Parents’ social attention to infants in the home environment: Emerging autonomy. The 9th Lancaster International Conference on Infant and Early Child Development, Lancaster, United Kingdom, August 28, 2025, (Oral).
Yamamoto, H. & Smith, L. B. (2025). A longitudinal analysis of face saliency in infants’ daily visual input. The 9th Lancaster International Conference on Infant and Early Child Development, Lancaster, United Kingdom, August 27, 2025.
Yamamoto, H. & Smith, L. B. (2024). Performance comparison of face detection algorithms on infants’ egocentric vision. Midwest Computer Vision Workshop, Bloomington, IN, United States, September 16-17, 2024.
Yamamoto, H. & Smith, L. B. (2024). How dyadic positions modulate infant-caregiver behavior coordination during object play. International Congress of Infant Studies 2024, Glasgow, United Kingdom, July 08-11, 2024.
Botros, M., Pattel, A., Penmathsa, S., Yamamoto, H., & Smith, L. B. (2024). Temporal behavior changes in response to infrequent object-directed behaviors. The 2024 National Conference on the Value of Play, Bloomington, IN, United States, April 16-18, 2024.
Yamamoto, H. & Smith, L. B. (2024). Infant-caregiver behavioral coordination: The influence of dyadic spatial arrangement in object play . The 2024 National Conference on the Value of Play, Bloomington, IN, United States, April 16-18, 2024.
Hagihara, H., Moriguchi, Y., Ianaga, N., Terayama, K., Yamamoto, H., Tsuji, S., & Sakagami, M. (2023). The differentiation of early noun representations from global events to specific objects. 52nd Annual Meeting of the Jean Piaget Society, Madrid, Spain, June 01-03, 2023.
Yamamoto, H., Sato, A., & Itakura, S. (2022). Investigating caregivers' face experience and social attention in daily infant-caregiver interactions: A longitudinal study. International Congress on Infant Studies 2022, Ottawa, Canada, July 07–10, 2022.
Hagihara, H., Yamamoto, H., Moriguchi, Y., & Sakagami, M. (2022). Dissociation of objects from object-specific actions predicts later vocabulary growth of action words. International Congress on Infant Studies 2022, Ottawa, Canada, July 07–10, 2022.
Hagihara, H., Yamamoto, H., Moriguchi, Y., & Sakagami, M. (2021). Early object words have undifferentiated meanings that are intertwined with object-specific actions. 2021 APS Virtual Convention, virtual congress, May 26–27, 2021, Poster.
Yamamoto, H., Sato, A., & Itakura, S. (2020). Transition from crawling to walking and gaze communication in everyday lives. Virtual International Congress on Infant Studies 2020, virtual congress, July 06–09, 2020, Poster.
Yamamoto, H., Sato, A., & Itakura, S. (2019). Do eye contacts by infants provoke speech from parents? Cognitive Development Society 2019, Louisville, KY, United States, October 17–19, 2019, Poster.
Yamamoto, H., Sato, A., & Itakura, S. (2017). Developmental dynamics of infant-parent distance in gaze communication: When infants are learning to walk. International Convention of Psychological Science 2017, Vienna, Austria, March 23–25, 2017, Poster.
Yamamoto, H., Sato, A., & Itakura, S. (2016). Development of daily gaze communication between infant and mother. The 31st International Congress of Psychology, Yokohama, Japan, July 24–29, 2016, Poster.
Yamamoto, H. & Itakura, S. (2015). How do spontaneous movements with standing affect duration of the standing? : Description and prediction from participant observation. Budapest CEU Conference on Cognitive Development 2015, Budapest, Hungary, January 08–10, 2015, Poster.

Honors & Awards

Young investigator's award (awarded as first-author)
The 21th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society of Baby Science Jun. 2021
Outstanding presentation award (awarded as co-author)
The 82nd Annual Convention of the Japanese Psychological Association Sep. 2018
Outstanding presentation award (awarded as first-author)
The 4th Young Researcher Meeting of the Japanese Society of Baby Science Sep. 2016

Funding

Grant for Distinctive Joint Research Apr. 2021–Mar. 2022
Doshisha University Center for Baby Science
Amount: 400,000 JPY
Grant for International Exchange Oct. 2019
The Kyoto University Foundation
Amount: 250,000 JPY
Grant-in-Aid for JSPS Research Fellow Apr. 2014–Mar. 2017
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (Grant Number: 14J04047)
Amount: 2,800,000 JPY

Teaching Experience

Part-time lecturer (Statistics)

Kyoto University, Japan, Psychology (Seminars) (Psychological Statistics), 2018–2019, 2021
Osaka Isen, Japan, Psychometrics, 2017–2019

Part-time lecturer (General Psychology)

Kansai Gakken Medical Welfare College, Japan, Psychology, 2017–2019
Omi-Hachiman School of Nursing, Japan, Psychology, 2017
Kyoto University, Japan, Psychology (Seminars) (Reading), 2017

Part-time lecturer (Developmental Psychology)

Kyoto University, Japan, Relay Seminars for Undergraduate Students (Seminars), 2017–2019, 2021

Part-time lecturer (Experimental Psychology)

Kyoto University, Japan, Psychology (Seminars) (Experimental Psychology), 2021
Otemon Gakuin University, Japan, Experimental Psychology, 2020

Teaching Assistant (Experimental Psychology)

Kyoto University, Japan, Psychology (Seminars) (Experimental Psychology), 2017–2020

Teaching Assistant (Primatology)

KyotoUx, edX, Evolution of the Human Sociality: A Quest for the Origin of Our Social Behavior, Dec. 2015–Jan. 2016

Additional Training

Research Integrity: Publication Ethics, A Nature Masterclasses online course, 2024
Focus on Peer Review, A Nature Masterclasses online course, 2020
Preparing Future Faculty Program, Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University, Japan, 2019
Brain Science Training Course, Brain Science Institute, Tamagawa University, Japan, 2012

Professional Memberships

Primate Society of Japan (2011–Present)
Cognitive Development Society (2019)
International Congress of Infant Studies (2020)
Cognitive Science Society (2021)

Skills

Languages : Japanese (Native), English (Intermediate)
Programming skills :
- Advanced : R, Stan
- Intermediate : LaTeX, Python
- Basic : MATLAB, NetLogo
Software skills : Tobii (eye-tracking)

Curriculum Vitae (pdf)

Jan 10th, 2025 updated

CV_20200218.pdf