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JST Press Release

6th June 2013
Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST)
5-3, Yonbancho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 102-8666
URL http://www.jst.go.jp/EN/index.html

Shy infants face a dilemma between approach and avoidance in front of strangers.

Infant shyness has been considered as a fear of strangers, however, the authors found that shy infants possess a conflicted temperament of both fear of and approach to strangers. This conflicted shyness presents behavioral markers of hypersensitivity to eyes and preference of averted-gaze faces to direct-gaze faces. These results contribute to understand underlying mechanisms of infants with developmental disorders, who sometime show a low-level shyness.

Researcher Information

The Exploratory Research for Advanced Technology (ERATO) “Okanoya Emotional Information Project”

Journal Information

Yoshi-Taka Matsuda, Kazuo Okanoya, Masako Myowa-Yamakoshi. "Shyness in early infancy: Approach-avoidance conflicts in temperament and hypersensitivity to eyes during initial gazes to faces." PLOS ONE, 2013
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0065476

Contact

[About Research]
Yoshi-Taka Matsuda Ph.D. Research Associate Professor, Center for Baby Science, Doshisha University
E-mail:
HP: http://akachan.doshisha.ac.jp/index.html
HP: http://www.jst.go.jp/erato/en/research_areas/ongoing/ojj_P.html

[About Program]
Tsuyoshi Nakamura
Department of Research Project
Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST)
E-mail:

Japanese


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