Development of Mind

本研究旨在探讨学龄前儿童的概念和语言发展过程，特别关注这些认知发展背后的先天生物学机制的本质及其与环境刺激的相互作用。这些认知发展障碍的机制也进行了研究。为此，与指导小组一起组织了概念发展、语言发展和认知发展障碍三个研究小组。指导小组致力于协调三个研究小组并发表研究成果。具体而言，在1997年至2000年的每个财政年度结束时，指导小组组织会议，报告和讨论该年度的研究成果，并出版和分发会议的预印本。在2000年（该项目的最后一个财政年度），举办了一个名为“心智发展”的国际研讨会，邀请了来自美国和欧洲的10名研究人员，并对该研究项目的成果进行了国际讨论和评估。与本项目相关，2001年8月（大阪），作为“大学与科学”系列研讨会之一，举办了“心灵的发展，语言的发展”的公开研讨会，目的是向非专业观众公开我们的研究成果。

This study aimed at investigating the process of concept and language developments in pre-school children with special reference to the nature of the innate biological mechanisms underlying these cognitive developments and their interaction with environmental stimuli. The mechanisms of disorders of these cognitive developments were also investigated. For this purpose, three research groups, concept development, language development and disorders of cognitive development were organized together with the steering group. The steering group worked toward coordination of the three research groups and publication of the research results. Specifically, at the end of the every fiscal year from 1997 to 2000, the steering group organized meetings for reporting and discussing the research results of the year, and published and distributed the preprints of the meeting. In 2000 (the last fiscal year of the project), an international symposium "Development of Mind" was held inviting 10 researchers from USA and Europe and the results of this research projects were internationally discussed and evaluated. In connection with the present project, an open symposium "Development of Mind, Development of Language" was held in August, 2001 (Osaka) as one of the series symposia "University and Science" with an aim to make public our research results to nonprofessional audience.