Among various concerns faced by university students, career-related anxiety is particularly prominent and can lead to mental health problems. In career support, the usefulness of clients’ “self-disclosure involving past memories” has been highlighted; however, studies focusing on actual listening dialogues and examining the process and effects of such disclosure remain limited. Therefore, this study examined the characteristics of counselors’ dialogue that elicit clients’ “self-disclosure involving past memories” and the usefulness of such dialogues. The results revealed that counselors’ “self-disclosure involving past memories” as well as counselor- and client-initiated advice promoted clients’ “self-disclosure involving past memories.” Furthermore, dialogues that elicited such disclosures improved POMS (Profile of Mood States) scores regardless of clients’ self-concealment tendencies. In contrast, speech patterns—such as excessive co-occurrence of “self-disclosure involving past memories” or a lack of co-occurrence with advice—may not lead to improvement. These findings highlight the usefulness of both clients’ and counselors’ “self-disclosure involving past memories” and advice, suggesting potential applications for conversational agent development and the training of novice counselors.

Numerous studies have reported that dancing reduces anxiety and depression, and is more effective against depression than other forms of physical exercise. However, the elements of dancing that contribute to the reduction of anxiety and depression remain unclear. Body movement is a common element across the various types of dance. Dance movements may lead individuals to focus on their body awareness, potentially contributing to a reduction in anxiety and depression. This study hypothesized that dancing would reduce anxiety and depression by enhancing body awareness. The participants were 130 undergraduate or graduate students who did not habitually engage in dance. Each participant was monitored in a 15-minute individual session. The participants were randomly assigned to two conditions. In the dancing condition, the participant was asked to imitate a model in a video, whereas in the video-watching condition, the participant only watched the same video. Consequently, dancing enhanced body awareness, and one of the three types of body awareness mediated the reduction in anxiety and depression. The findings suggest that dancing promotes changes in body awareness, and that a more positive interpretation of bodily sensations contributes to the reduction of anxiety and depression.

This study investigated the effects of need for cognition (NFC) and narrative complexity on the spoiler effect. In an online experiment, 359 participants read either spoiler-containing or spoiler-free synopses before reading and evaluating a short story. Two types of stories were used: simple and complex. The results showed that in the spoiler-free condition, a higher NFC led to better comprehension and reduced cognitive load. Conversely, in the spoiler-present condition, the influence of individual differences on the NFC disappeared. Spoilers did not directly affect enjoyment ratings; however, both cognitive load and comprehension influenced these ratings.

The present study investigated the crossmodal correspondence between the spatial position of visual stimuli and vocal pitch, building on the findings of Suzuki and Nagai (2020). We aimed to clarify the conditions under which this correspondence emerges, focusing on task-irrelevant spatial information (Experiment 1) and symbolic spatial cues such as arrows (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, participants produced high- or low-pitched vocal responses based on the color of visual stimuli presented above or below a central fixation point. In Experiment 2, participants responded to the orientation of arrows pointing upward or downward. Results showed that in both experiments, vocal responses congruent with the spatial information of the visual stimuli (high/low) were executed more quickly than incongruent responses. These findings indicate that the spatial position–vocal pitch correspondence occurs regardless of the task relevance or presentation format of the spatial information. Moreover, acoustic analyses in Experiment 1 revealed that congruent-pitched vocal responses exhibited increased Cepstral Peak Prominence Smoothed (CPPS), reflecting enhanced vocal fluency. In contrast, Experiment 2 showed no significant effects on CPPS, suggesting that symbolic stimuli requiring internal spatial encoding may not facilitate the motoric aspects of vocal production to the same extent as physically displaced stimuli. These results suggest that the salience and physical characteristics of visual stimuli may determine whether crossmodal correspondence influences the motor execution of vocal responses (i.e., fluency). Overall, this study extends previous work by demonstrating that spatial–pitch correspondence generalizes across different stimulus formats and can facilitate a vocal response.

The attribute framing effect is a phenomenon whereby logically equivalent but varied verbal expressions induce different decisions. Existing studies have primarily investigated the impact of differences in verbal expressions on the attribute framing effect; only a few have examined how it is affected by nonverbal information. In our real communication, verbal expressions are often accompanied by various nonverbal ones, such as gestures. Therefore, we investigated the effect of adding static poses that represent the quantity information included in the sentences that induce the attribute framing effect on decision-making bias. We also examined the extent of this effect. The results showed that the attribute framing effect induced a decision bias even when the poses were added. However, the impact of different pose types on the framing effect of attributes was not observed. Based on the results of this experiment, we discussed the effects of presenting people on decision-making, the differences in priority between verbal and nonverbal information, the influence of the intentions implied by poses, and the possibility of theoretical extensions to the attribute framing effect mechanism through comparison with previous research.

Animacy perception—the impression of lifelikeness based on motion cues—has been widely studied in perceptual psychology and social cognition. While previous research has examined the physical motion features that induce animacy impressions, little is known about how these impressions are modulated by temporal context. This study investigated whether serial dependence affects perceived animacy. In Experiment 1, we created dot animation stimuli with varying levels of motion noise and found that animacy perception increased as motion noise decreased. In Experiment 2, we separately quantified response-history and stimulus-history components of serial dependence using sequential regression models and Derivative-of-Gaussian (DoG) functions. Results revealed a significant assimilation bias toward the preceding trial, and the stimulus-history component was well captured by a DoG-shaped tuning curve as a function of the difference in noise level (Δstim). These findings suggest that animacy perception is susceptible to serial dependence, supporting the generality of continuity field-based temporal integration mechanisms.

Recent studies have suggested that an individual’s color preferences are not fixed but may be subject to change. Additionally, laboratory experiments have indicated the possibility of altering participants’ color preferences. This study aimed to investigate whether the evaluation of colors associated with “sweetness” could be manipulated by having participants read specific stories. We investigated changes in participants’ color preferences based on three conditions. In the preference increase condition, the preference for colors associated with “sweetness” increased, while in the preference decrease condition, it decreased. In the control condition, although the increase was smaller than in the preference increase condition, the preference for colors associated with ‘sweetness’ still increased. In conclusion, the study suggests that reading stories related to sweet foods can manipulate the preference for colors associated with “sweetness.”

Decisions from experience (DfE) show systematic behavioral patterns that differ from decisions from description (DfD), a phenomenon known as the description–experience gap. In DfE, probability inference plays a central role, however the normative Bayesian inference model assumes exchangeability of experiences and does not account for “recency”, the tendency to overweight recent samples. We propose a forgetting Bayesian inference model that introduces temporal discounting into the likelihood, to capture recency in probability inference. We also integrate this model with Cumulative Prospect Theory (CPT), to examine heterogeneity in the probability weighting function. Bayesian model comparison in a repeated decision-making task with 65 university students, indicated that the forgetting Bayesian inference model achieved higher predictive power than conventional models. Allowing heterogeneity in CPT’s probability weighting function yielded the best fit. These findings show that incorporating forgetting and heterogeneity provides a more refined account of DfE.

Procrastination impairs academic performance, mental health, and career outcomes. Therefore, it is essential to identify strategies for reducing procrastination. While individual-level interventions, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, are effective, efforts to reduce procrastination by modifying task characteristics have been limited. This study developed a novel intervention that leverages the Zeigarnik effect (the tendency to remember unfinished tasks more often than completed ones) and psychological reactance (the motivation to restore threatened freedom) to reduce procrastination. Two online experiments examined whether brief, time-limited preparatory tasks would reduce procrastination. In Experiment 1, participants were randomly assigned to an experimental or control group. Before the main task, the participants in the experimental group were shown the first five references from the main task’s reference list and instructed to edit as many references as possible within a five-minute time limit. The participants in the control group received the main task without the preparatory activities. All participants were given 10 days to submit a reference list formatted according to journal guidelines. Participants completed self-report procrastination measures before and after the task. The submission rate was significantly higher in the experimental group than in the control group, even when controlling for general procrastination tendencies, although there were no significant differences between the conditions in self-report procrastination measures. Experiment 2 modified the preparatory task to allow flexible time use within the five-minute constraint but found no significant group differences in submission rates. These findings suggest that structured preparatory activities that facilitate partial task completion can increase submission rates; however, their effects on subjective experiences of procrastination remain unclear. This study highlights the importance of task structuring in procrastination interventions.

Human body representation flexibly changes through multisensory integration. The Finger-Bonding Illusion (FBI) is a tactile illusion in which synchronous stimulation of the left and right fingers induces the sensation that the fingers are fused, typically accompanied by an attraction between them. The present study examined whether similar effects occur when the fingers are arranged along the anterior–posterior axis and how distance from the body influences such distortions. Across two experiments, synchronous tactile stimulation was applied to the index and ring fingers positioned 6 cm apart in depth. In Experiment 1, participants reported perceived finger positions using a tabletop display under open-eye conditions. In Experiment 2, finger position was measured under closed-eye conditions using head tracking, together with subjective ratings and time-series analyses. Both experiments revealed a reliable reduction in inter-finger distance during synchronous stimulation, indicating that FBI-like attraction also emerges in the anterior–posterior direction. Importantly, the attraction was strongly asymmetric. In both experiments, the index finger consistently drifted toward the distal direction, whereas the ring finger exhibited little or no displacement. This asymmetry was robust across measurement methods and was also reflected in subjective reports of attraction. Time-series analyses further showed that the distal drift of the index finger emerged rapidly, even under asynchronous stimulation. These findings suggest that anterior–posterior FBI reflects not only multisensory synchrony but also distance-dependent weighting of body parts relative to the torso. The results extend previous FBI findings and highlight the role of body-centered distance in shaping multisensory body representations.

Audio–tactile integration is known to reduce spatial discrepancies between sound and touch, but it remains unclear whether this effect differs across body parts. Preliminary observations using an illusion apparatus suggested that synchronous audio–tactile stimulation involving tactile contact to the head can induce an illusion in which externally presented sounds are perceived inside the head. The present study therefore investigated whether the audio–tactile magnet effect—the attraction of perceived sound location toward synchronous tactile stimulation—is selectively enhanced at the head. Two experiments were conducted under visually deprived conditions using periodic tactile stimulation synchronized with continuous changes in sound frequency presented from the front. Experiment 1 compared tactile stimulation applied to the head and shoulder across different sound-distance conditions using subjective ratings and pointing responses. Experiment 2 further controlled tactile contact site and surface texture by including both direct body contact and indirect contact mediated by the participant’s hand, allowing comparisons among stimulation applied to the head, shoulder, and hand. Across both experiments, attraction of perceived sound location was consistently strongest when tactile stimulation was applied to the head, whereas effects at non-head body parts were significantly weaker. These findings suggest that audio–tactile coupling at the head selectively enhances the audio–tactile magnet effect.

This study investigated how culturally grounded movement characteristics relate to the aesthetic evaluation of Latin American dance. Using motion-capture data of Cuban Motion as reported by Matsuoka-Hatsuda et al. (2025a, 2025b), we analyzed the relationship between culturally specific kinematic features and subjective evaluations of movement quality. Twelve Latin American dancers (six experts and six non-experts) performed Cuban Rocks, and their movements were quantified using four indicators: symmetry of motion trajectories, circularity (trajectory smoothness), intrapersonal coordination between heels and other body parts (CcrHeel), and rhythmic stability. Trained judges evaluated each performance across four culturally grounded factors—Aesthetics, Temporality, Spatiality, and Dynamism—based on adjective-pair rating scales. Linear mixed-effects modeling revealed that symmetric movements by expert dancers were rated higher on the Aesthetics and Dynamism factors, consistent with cultural values of balance, stability, and power in Latin American dance. Circularity showed a positive effect on both Aesthetics and Temporality, suggesting that smooth trajectories enhance perceived aesthetic and rhythmic qualities. In contrast, high CcrHeel values were negatively associated with aesthetic ratings, indicating that heel–body coordination primarily underlies technical stability rather than visual appeal. Although rhythmic stability did not show a significant effect, a positive trend for Spatiality suggests that stable rhythmic cycles contribute to a sense of spatial expansiveness. These findings quantitatively demonstrate that culturally grounded aesthetic values in Latin American dance emerge from the integration of symmetry, smoothness, rhythm, and intersegmental coordination—offering a quantitative account of the embodied cognitive processes that constitute culturally specific dance expertise.

Perceptual switching during bistable perception is associated with several individual traits. However, the contributions of bodily traits remain unclear. Interoceptive processes may influence perceptual stability through attentional control and cognitive resource allocation. Although the association between heartbeat-related interoception and perception has been examined, additional aspects of interoception warrant investigation. The present study examined whether interoceptive sensibility, as assessed using the Japanese version of the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA-J), was associated with perceptual switching, and whether this association varied depending on intentional control and stimulus type. A total of 293 participants completed bistable perception tasks using two stimuli under either an intentional-control condition or a no-control condition and then completed the MAIA-J. Perceptual switching was analyzed using hurdle models with the MAIA-J factors and intentional control as predictor variables, and likelihood ratio tests were used to evaluate the contribution of the interactions between the MAIA-J factors and intentional control. For the Necker cube, higher “Noticing” was associated with more switching, and “Attention Regulation” was associated with the occurrence of switching specifically under the intentional-control condition. For the dot apparent motion stimulus, interoceptive factors were differentially associated with switching frequency: under the intentional-control condition, higher “Body Listening” was associated with more switching, whereas under the no-control condition, higher “Noticing” was associated with more switching and higher “Emotional Awareness” was associated with less switching. These findings demonstrate an association between interoceptive sensibility and perceptual switching, and suggest that bodily awareness and attention to bodily signals may contribute to perceptual control.

This study investigates perception-action couplings underlying the processes of abstract sketching, a form of drawing that proceeds without the mediation of linguistic meaning. Although studies conducted in the 1990s revealed that the co-creation of meaning and perceptual discovery drives the design process using sketches, they did not analyze the perception-action interactions involved in the process itself. Focusing on “abstract sketching,” this study explores the perception-action couplings underlying sketching processes through studies on/with the first-person’s view approach, combining the author’s own practice with video analysis of a participant’s sketching. First, through video analysis, observable “gestures,” defined as recurring stroke patterns that leave traces on the paper, were coded, and 13 types were identified. Second, co-occurrence analysis of these gestures suggested that their combinations are organized around “tracing gestures.” Third, detailed case analysis allowed us to speculate on the perception-action couplings underlying tracing gestures categorizing the patterns from the perspective of gestalt perception into the following four types: “reinforcement,” “transformation,” “differentiation,” and “integration.” It is proposed that tracing gestures regulate the touch of pencil strokes, changing gestalt perception and thereby serving as turning points that open drawing processes toward new developments, forming perception-action coupling at the core of abstract sketching.

This study investigated how students’ views of learning influence the quality of inquiry processes and artifacts in inquiry-based learning. It focused on whether students approach learning as knowledge acquisition or as knowledge construction. Participants included 35 high school students enrolled in an online inquiry program. The study analyzed the relationships among rubric assessments of students’ inquiry processes and artifacts, and their self-set activity goals, which revealed a clear pattern. Students who viewed the task not merely as an opportunity to acquire or transmit knowledge but also as a chance to co-construct knowledge through social interaction with others tended to produce higher-quality inquiry work. Similarly, students who aimed to develop deeper responses to the inquiry questions rather than settling for surface-level responses demonstrated stronger inquiry processes. Although the students learned in the same environment and addressed the same inquiry tasks, the quality of their inquiry work varied significantly. The findings suggest that the goals students hold, particularly those emphasizing social interaction and the pursuit of deeper explanations, play an important role in shaping the quality of their inquiry processes. These results highlight the potential value of instructional support that helps students embed social interaction into their learning goals and attend to the depth of the answers they seek. Such support may contribute to improving the overall quality of inquiry-based learning.

Ecological studies on the impacts of global optical flow (GOF) on posture have long employed the Moving Room experimental paradigm, in which the surfaces surrounding participants (except for the floor) oscillate back and forth. Although the accumulated results are insightful, these set-ups have used fully enclosed rooms without windows, and thereby, the effects of apertures connecting the room interior to an exterior environment remain unknown. To address this gap, the present study used virtual reality (VR) to construct a Nested Moving Room (NMR), in which an inner room was surrounded by an outer wall, and the two were connected by apertures of varying sizes. Two within-participant factors were manipulated: aperture pattern (three levels: no aperture, window aperture, and full aperture) and oscillation pattern (three levels: room oscillation, outside oscillation, and no oscillation). The results showed that room oscillations in the no-aperture condition induced strong feelings of self-motion and increased body sway, replicating the classical Moving Room effect. This effect was maintained under the window-aperture condition but was attenuated under the full-aperture condition. Furthermore, cross-recurrence quantification analysis (CRQA) revealed that the window-aperture condition yielded relatively high coupling stability (Lmax) and determinism (DET) between head sway and environmental oscillation. These findings suggest that apertures in the nested room walls alter the structure of optical flow available for posture maintenance, and that the occlusion relationships at the aperture edges may provide additional visual information that enhances the dynamic stability of postural control.

In this paper, we define perceived social constraints as situations in which, during disagreements between humans and dialogue agents, individuals feel the need for consideration or consider adopting irrational opinions under structural constraints, such as maintaining future relationships with the speaker and social costs. Using video-based scenarios in which participants assumed the role of a moderator observing a discussion between a human and dialogue agent, we conducted three experiments. Experiment 1 (20 university students) showed that participants tended to adopt the human discussant’s incorrect opinion. Experiment 2 (234 crowdworkers) manipulated the agent’s modality (text, voice, robot) and replicated this pattern, again demonstrating that Perceived Social Constraints were particularly salient when the incorrect opinion was expressed by a human. No significant main effect of agent modality emerged, suggesting that Perceived Social Constraints are not tied to specific agent forms. Experiment 3 (144 crowdworkers) showed that the strength of interpersonal relationships can trigger irrational decision-making. These findings indicate that, even when dialogue agents possess high capabilities, interpersonal factors may hinder rational consensus formation in human–agent joint decision-making.

In studies on aesthetic appreciation, poetry has received less attention than other art forms. Furthermore, few attempts have been made to model the underlying cognitive processes, which leaves computational approaches insufficiently explored. In this study, to explore the cognitive process of poetry appreciation, we propose a computational model of poetry appreciation based on a spreading activation network. According to the Aesthetic Association Principle, poetry reading comprehension involves the process of evoking semantically related concepts from the words in the poem. We model this process as spreading activation within a semantic network. We model the aesthetic effect using cognitive load and its resolution based on incongruity resolution theory. Specifically, we quantify the diversity of activation in the network using Shannon entropy and calculate the degrees of incongruity resolution and unresolved load from entropy differences. We tested the computational model using a linear mixed model, with simulation results as the independent variables, human ratings of aesthetic appeal as the dependent variable, and participants as the random effect. The analysis demonstrated that the degree of incongruity resolution had a significant positive effect and the degree of unresolved load had a significant negative effect on aesthetic appeal. This finding is consistent with incongruity resolution theory, thus providing evidence for the validity of the model and suggesting its potential as a comprehensive model of poetry appreciation.

Social exclusion refers to being ignored, ostracized, or rejected by others. While social exclusion is a phenomenon widely observable throughout human life, beginning as early as infancy, research into its developmental processes and impacts has only recently begun. Therefore, this paper introduces a representative model and methods used to examine social exclusion, reviews the latest trends in developmental research based on these methods, and discusses future issues and prospects. Specifically, I first introduce Williams’s temporal need-threat model as a key model regarding social exclusion and provide an overview of experimental and non-experimental methodologies applied across participants from infants to adults. Next, I clarify the effects of social exclusion on individuals’ fundamental needs, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral aspects by synthesizing existing findings from adults and developmental studies. Finally, I address theoretical, methodological, cultural, and ethical issues emerging in advancing developmental research and discuss prospects.

In psychology and psychiatry, decision-making and learning under uncertainty are crucial for understanding the mechanisms of human adaptive behavior. Cognitive tasks are fundamental for computational research in this field, as they shape the nature and quality of behavioral data for computational modeling. Despite a variety of cognitive tasks available, a systematic selection and design guide for researchers is lacking. This study aims to provide a comprehensive selection guide through a scoping review of 229 articles published since 2020. We classified the cognitive tasks based on a novel framework consisting of three axes: (1) target cognitive processes, (2) estimation difficulty (the degree of uncertainty in estimating outcomes), and (3) applied computational models. Tasks with no estimation difficulty (e.g., decision-making under risk) that primarily target static preferences rather than learning processes are modeled using valuation/preference or sequential sampling models. Low estimation difficulty tasks (e.g., basic bandit task) focus on experience-based value updates in stable environments, predominantly using reinforcement learning models. In high estimation difficulty tasks, modeling approaches diverged based on the source of uncertainty. Tasks with environmental volatility or rule instability were analyzed with Bayesian inference models to capture higher-order estimation (e.g., Hierarchical Gaussian Filter). By contrast, tasks with ambiguity (hidden information or feedback) were typically analyzed with valuation/preference models. We propose this framework as a comprehensive guide for researchers to align their research interests, task designs, and modeling strategies.

This study comprehensively reviewed prior research on body synchrony in prosociality. Empirical evidence consistently demonstrates that when individuals synchronize their movements with others, such synchrony enhances perceptions of social connectedness, including bonding and collective identity; fosters positive affective states such as well-being; and promotes prosocial attitudes and behaviors, notably trust and cooperation, directed toward both dyadic partners and groups. To examine these effects, previous studies manipulated synchrony through various procedures and assessed outcomes using behavioral indicators and psychometric measures. Several theoretical accounts have been proposed to explain these effects, emphasizing psychological processes and biological mechanisms. This review addressed body synchrony in terms of its conceptual definition and typology, methodological strategies employed to verify its effects, prosocial consequences, and the mechanisms presumed to underlie these processes. In addition, future directions and challenges are considered, including the need for a systematic investigation of the potentially negative consequences of synchrony, which remain insufficiently examined, and the development of novel methodological approaches that hold promise for advancing the empirical study of this phenomenon.

Causal explanations are explanations of why an event occurs. Evaluation of causal explanations is central to prediction, learning, exploration, and metacognition, yet research on this topic remains divided across philosophy, psychology, and artificial intelligence. In this paper, we treat evaluation of explanations as an information-processing problem and organize the literature within Marr’s three-level framework, linking philosophical discussions of normative evaluation (computational level) to the judgment strategies actually used by humans and machines (algorithmic level). We first clarify the role of causal explanation in cognition and then review two major philosophical frameworks: Inference to the Best Explanation and Bayesianism. We next examine psychological studies showing that people evaluate explanations using explanatory virtues such as simplicity and scope, and that these judgments interact with probabilistic assessments of plausibility. We also discuss recent work on LLM-based explanation evaluation, arguing that human and LLM judgments can be analyzed as different weightings of partially shared evaluative features. Finally, we identify a central mismatch between philosophical and psychological approaches as a gap between research at the computational and algorithmic levels: philosophical discussions often distinguish absolute and relative evaluation, whereas psychological experiments and computational models frequently conflate them. We conclude that clarifying the theoretical assumptions that bridge these levels is essential for developing future computational models of explanation evaluation.

It is well established that choking under pressure (simply choking), that is a decline in performance under high psychological pressure, occurs across contexts despite adequate ability, while its detailed mechanisms remain unclear. This review highlights the potential role of neuroscience in fully understanding the mechanisms behind choking. First, we organize and introduce potential mechanisms behind choking that have been proposed in the previous literature: the overarousal theory, attentional distraction theory, self-focused attention theory, and the predictive-coding modulation account, with several lines of psychological evidence supporting each theory. Second, we present several recent studies in the field of neuroscience using data from humans and nonhuman primates. Finally, we outline future directions for how neuroscience could contribute to a comprehensive understanding of choking mechanisms from five perspectives: studies using animal models; personal traits associated with choking; computational/mathematical modeling; group-level choking; and the application and validation of interventions for coping with choking.

This study aims to clarify how groups of university students collaboratively accomplish “order decisions” in restaurants equipped with a push-button ordering system (Belstar). While smartphone and tablet-based ordering systems have become mainstream, push-button systems are now less common. Nevertheless, pressing the button still constitutes an irreversible action once performed. Drawing on six video-recorded ordering scenes, this study focuses on participants’ utterances and embodied conduct immediately prior to pressing the Belstar button. The analysis reveals that confirmation utterances such as “Have you decided?” and “Shall we order?” were repeatedly exchanged before the button was pressed. In addition, utterances explicitly indicating an intention to press the button, as well as the manipulation of artifacts such as menus and pens, frequently appeared immediately beforehand. These interactions functioned as careful and collaborative adjustments among participants prior to carrying out an irreversible action. The findings suggest that the “time before pressing” is jointly constructed through talk and embodied coordination.

Cheering is deeply embedded in daily life, with familiar examples including school clubs, music concerts, and sports. Previous studies have mainly focused on the effects of factors recorded at venues, such as the presence of spectators or positive verbal encouragement, and the number of spectators. However, a subjective aspect, such as how recipients recognize the role of cheering, has not been fully examined. This study explored the role of cheering beyond numerical effects through a case study approach based on multiple analysis perspectives. An interview was conducted with a former professional athlete, and the verbal reports were qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed. The results suggested that cheering establishes an interactive relationship between those who cheer and those who receive it, and that the mechanism enhancing intrinsic motivation differs depending on situations, such as home and away. As a first step toward understanding the role of cheering, this study provides a new research stance that captures it as an interaction between these two sides.