FUKUOKA PREFECTURAL UNIVERSITY

Main Site > Staff List > Human Development & Education

Kyosuke FUKUDA (professor)

BA in Education (Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, 1976);
MA in Psychology (Kyushu University, Fukuoka, 1979);
PhD in Psychology (Kyushu University, Fukuoka, 1986).

Kyosuke Fukuda was born in Nagasaki prefecture in 1953. Since it was his dream to be an elementary school teacher at first, he attended the Faculty of Education at Nagasaki University. During his undergraduate days, however, he was most impressed by psychology, so he moved to Kyushu University to learn about psychology. At that time he became interested in the relationship between eyeblinks and information processing. After graduating with a PhD in Psychology, he worked as an assistant professor at Saga Women's Junior College for 9 years before coming to FPU in 1993.

Courses

Psychology experiments for under graduate students. In this class, participants undergo practical training in order to achieve mastery in psychology experimentation. Participants learn about how to design an experiment, how to collect data, how to analyze data using a work spread sheet or statistical methods, and how to describe their findings in a report.

Perception for undergraduate and graduate students. We are surrounded by various stimuli such as lights, colors, sounds, pressure, temperature, and so on. When these stimuli activate our sensory organs, these stimuli are perceived by us. How can we make these stimuli significant for us? In this class, participants are informed about the ingenious mechanism by which we perceive various events in the external world.

Cognitive psychology for undergraduate and graduate students. In order to survive in the environment surrounding us, we need to have various functions such as perception, memory, comprehension, problem-solving etc. A lot of information from the environment is processed in the brain through the sensory organs, and this is called information processing. In this class, participants are informed about the fascinating mechanism through which we recognize and understand our surroundings.

Educational psychology for undergraduate students. When we are in front of children as teachers, we need to know a lot of psychological knowledge such as children's developmental, comprehensive, and social functions etc. What knowledge about psychology can be applied to the educational situation? In this class, participants learn about the psychological knowledge required in educational situations.

Methodology in psychological research for graduate students. In order to describe one's research in an article for publication, it is necessary to know the methodology for psychology experiments. In this class, participants are required to make presentations about other research. Thus, they become familiar with the various methodologies in psychological research.

Seminar for master's or graduation thesis preparation in psychology. In order to accomplish the successful completion of their master thesis or graduation thesis, participants need to be trained how to search for relevant articles, how to review them, how to design experiments, how to analyze data from experiments, and how to describe their findings in their thesis.

Academic Interests

The relationship between eye activity and information processing. "The eye is a window on the mind," is a well-known proverb all over the world. Dr. Fukuda's main area of research is concerned with how the activity of the eye such as eye movement, pupillary movement and eyeblink is related to information processing. In his experiments, he is always observing subjects' eyes using a video camera and he finds this research both interesting and exciting. After analyzing the data from eye observations, he has a lot of findings showing that the eye truly is a window on the mind. Dr. Fukuda is currently a visiting scholar at Washington University (St.Louis) in Dr. Stern's Psychophysiology Lab, where a lot of experiments on the eye are being performed.

...

Other Information

Parent training program. Parent training is a method to train parents who have children with problematic behavior (such as eating, toileting, swearing, offensive, and hyperkinetic etc) in order to improve their parenting skills on the basis of behavioral therapy. Dr. Fukuda learned parent training skills in the Hizen Psychiatric Center in Saga prefecture from 1990 to 1998. Since 1999, he and his team have provided the parent training program, which is called "Class room for moms & dads," for parents in FPU's local community.

Although his teaching, research and parent training keep him extremely busy, Dr. Fukuda still finds time to pursue the other passion in his life: playing tennis.