Yanaoka Kaichi

A new kind of inhibitory control task for wide age range participants, Happy-Sad Task, was developed by American researchers. We use the same task for Japanese preschoolers to know if the task is suitable for them. As a result, we have found that the performance of Happy-Sad Task has positive relationship to the performance of DCCS (Dimensional Change Card Sort). Moreover, Japanese preschoolers were better at the task than American preschoolers. These results suggest that Japanese preschoolers might have better inhibitory control than American preschoolers or the relationship between emotional words and facial expression is weaker for Japanese preschoolers than American preschoolers.