[Trends in research on social cognition: studies of organization of person information and knowledge activation]

Although social cognition research has a history of twenty years, this area is not well recognized in Japan yet. This review focuses on studies on person perception, especially on the organization of person information and knowledge activation in social cognition. The effect of knowledge activation on behavior is also addressed. First, the historical stream of social cognition studies is overviewed. Second, the topics of representations of persons, top-down/bottom-up processes in person perception, and spontaneous trait inferences are discussed. Furthermore, the topics of construct accessibility effect, development of assimilation/contrast effect, activation of goal concepts, and its effect on behavior are examined. Lastly, some arguments on social cognition research are addressed with references to the future.