Papers
7
Total Citations
140
H-Index
4
About
Tomoyo Morita is a cognitive scientist whose research sits at the intersection of social neuroscience, developmental psychology, and human–robot interaction. Her work explores how the human brain processes social agents—whether human or robotic—and how these perceptions evolve from infancy through adulthood. In her most-cited study (86 citations), Morita demonstrated that social interactions with different agents uniquely modulate dorsal and ventral brain pathways, revealing distinct neural substrates for forming impressions of others. She has also pioneered the use of eye-tracking to investigate how infants and adults perceive body movements, including biomechanically possible and impossible actions, shedding light on the early development of mentalizing and emotion understanding. Extending this to comparative cognition, she examined great apes’ understanding of biomechanics using 3D animations. More recently, Morita has focused on human–robot symbiosis, showing that gradual rhythm changes in drumming robots can enhance the pseudosense of leading, fostering friendly impressions critical for social robotics. Her interdisciplinary contributions bridge developmental science, comparative psychology, and robotics, offering insights into how social cognition develops and how robots can be designed to engage humans naturally.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
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- 3The Development of Mentalizing and Emotion in Human Children6 citations · 2012
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- 6How does emphatic emotion emerge via human-robot rhythmic interaction?3 citations · 2014
- 7Development of Perception of Human and Robot Body Movement3 citations · 2010