For example, it has become known in recent research that eye contact activates the dopamine system in the brain. The face in the photograph above has eye contact with all of you, but the face in the photograph below has not. Probably, if Professor Funabiki sees the photograph above, dopamine is secreted in his brain, but if he sees the photograph below, the dopamine will decrease. The more you find the woman in the photograph attractive, the more dopamine will be secreted. Moreover, when there is no eye contact, the activity of the nerve cells secreting dopamine declines the more attractive you find her. That is why, according to what I heard from someone from McDonald's Japan, the first point mentioned in the manual is to have eye contact with the customer. 'Smile 0 yen' is indeed a device that suits the mechanism of the brain very much, providing satisfaction to customers without cost. Although it is still only gradually being investigated in terms of concrete brain structure, it is said that in fact a human being cannot clearly be said to have a single self. That is to say, a new self is created one after another according to the context of scenes of communication. If there is an imaginary person called A, his/her personality does not remain single, but rapidly changes into A' or A'' as the activities of the brain change to suit the other. For example, in my own case, I have a character that appears when I am asked directions by a foreigner who speaks good Japanese. The person is asking in perfect Japanese, so I should speak Japanese normally, but I end up speaking in some kind of foreigner's Japanese. There are personalities that only appear when a young boy scout man talks to children, or when someone has a conversation with a taxi driver. It seems that a single self does not exist in terms of brain functions. It seems more correct to say that personalities are created according to each context. Very tragic examples of this are cases of Multiple Personality Disorder or Dissociative Identity Disorder. This is a complicated disorder which takes about five years to confirm diagnosis in clinical psychology, and can be verified as activity of the brain. In many cases of Multiple Personality Disorder, the patient is abused during childhood and later develops this disorder. It became famous in The Minds of Billy Milligan. No matter how many personalities there are, there are basically only two categories, namely the personality that can remember the memory of abuse and the personality that cannot. In other words, the logic of formation of multiple personalities is that it is very difficult to live while remembering having been abused, so a new personality is created which cannot remember this memory of abuse. When the person has the personality which cannot remember the abuse memory, we know that the right side part of the frontal lobe is activated and prevents the recollection of the memory. What multiple personalities mean actually in extreme terms is the creation of new selves according to context and relationships, so we all have a mild tendency towards multiple personalities. Professor Kamata, for example, suddenly turns into a singer-songwriter and becomes a different personality (laughter).

 In this sense, costume play is very interesting. Moreover, IT promoted multiple personalities in the sense that it considerably freed contexts which were dependent on time and place by development of portable and mobile communications. One person has increasingly come to take on multiple contexts and personalities. Young people today easily take on two to three roles, and sisters and mothers are also freed from contexts of time and place due to the use of mobile phones. For example, some mothers take their children to nursery schools, and then go to a café in Aoyama, laugh and chat with their girlfriends from their student days and switch completely into girl students' mode. When a message comes from the nursery school to the mobile phone that so and so has fever, her character suddenly changes. She says, 'My goodness, I have to go and fetch him/her', returning completely to the mother personality. IT supports the possibility of multiple contexts by removing dependency on place and time. Human brains can use these things and have fun. Costume play is deeply related to this kind of tendency of contemporary civilization. I think people who do costume play in fact represent something very contemporary that goes clearly beyond time, place and context.

　

 I began my discussion with qualia and went on to talk about memory, emotion and communication. Context is a common element in all of these. We cannot understand what we are today without thinking about context. I think character is in one sense established by the brain creating context that does not exist in reality. Marcel Duchamp's 'Fountain', which is said to be the starting point of contemporary art, would be a urinal in the context of a men's toilet, and a ready made work of art in the context of an art gallery. Society evaluates characters as subculture and contemporary art as high culture, but from the point of view of context, they have many commonalities. In particular, from the viewpoint of working of the brain, the work of Nakamura Masato (Associate Professor of Oil Painting, Faculty of Fine Arts, Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music) which is like a yellow McDonald's sign can come into existence in the contexts of McDonalds and globalism, but this is almost the same as perceiving manga and characters which have high contextuality. There is a progression of artists of high culture turning to subculture and becoming artists of pop culture. Ono Yoko's 'Apple' is just an apple placed in a kitchen, but by placing it in a particular context, it is established as a work of art. The most important point about studies of subculture and characters is how to theorize their universality. Issues in brain science are scientific so they are valid universally in any country. When we export Japanese characters abroad, I think it will be most important to find out where to discover universality, that is to say, how to design the context. Murakami Takashi's concept of 'superflat' created a context by linking ukiyoe and sensual pictures of the Edo period directly to Japanese manga and animation. I think this can be appraised as a strategy. Childishness and single-minded partiality found in otaku culture are a result of being constantly told by Americans to remain like children forever. If this is the case, it might be valid to consciously and strategically argue that the context in which the Japanese are placed in the world is childishness and pure partial love. That is to say, unless we strategically export abroad, we will not be successful. Many possible contexts are possible: context in the style of Murakami Takashi, or a different context in which the Japanese become independent as adults. This is a question of creativity, and am I alone in thinking that it would be very difficult in reality? The stronghold of American pop culture will not be shaken. American pop culture as represented by FOX television aggressively presents mass desire, very difficult to compete with and one even senses a kind of prejudice. Even Ryuichi Sakamoto said, 'The stronghold of America's pop culture is invincible.' The standard of those who appear in the People magazine is the Hilton sisters and they are unlikely to make it into the top of the billboard charts. There is a tremendous stronghold, and no matter how much Utada Hikaru spends for a debut, it is impossible to succeed being a Japanese and with that face. Murakami, in one sense, broke that stronghold and went inside. I am personally most interested in how to go over this wall. Reconstruction has begun around that area. Different reconstructions of Miyazaki Hayao, Otomo Katsuhiro, Bandai and so on have begun. As Kiyotani-san has mentioned, costume play is being performed in France, adults are reading manga on the subway, and gradually there are movements in which such contexts are becoming effective. I think the most important point is how we should understand this, seeing from the point of view of the working of the brain, that is to say, how to construct context is most important. I think there were some parts difficult to understand, but I will end here for now. Thank you very much for your kind attention.