This paper reports the development of a new haptic direction indicator, which will help blind pedestrians to travel a path intuitively and safely by means of haptic navigation. A novel kinesthetic perception method, called the "pseudo-attraction force technique", is applied to a haptic direction indicator, which exploits the nonlinear relationship between perceived acceleration and physical acceleration to generate a force sensation. An experiment was performed to clarify the perceptual characteristics for visually impaired pedestrians to walk a predefined route in a human-size maze. The results indicate that they safely walked along a predefined route with the haptic direction indicator at their usual walk pace, independent of the existence of auditory information.

It is difficult for the deafblind or the hearing impaired persons to control their voice pitch because they cannot perceive their voice pitch. Especially in case of singing a song it is very difficult for them to control their one because they must keep a musical tone in stably. A voice pitch control system is developed to assist their singing by using a tactile display. The tactile display is equipped with sixty-four piezoelectric vibrators in four rows. There are sixteen piezoelectric vibrators in each row which is corresponded to semi tone of equal temperament of 12 degrees. User put his/her the last joint of index finger on the tactile display to receive tactile stimuli. First and second row from the right side show voice pitch frequency. Third and fourth row show teaching musical scale. If voice pitch frequency is corresponded to a teaching musical scale user perceive a straight line. In this paper we describe the voice pitch control system which we developed and its evaluation.

This paper describes the process of developing and evaluating the "calm down" spaces in rooms (COZY Room) for children with disabilities. Some children with disabilities are hypersensitive to noise and the behaviors of others; therefore, some group activities in schools and day care centers will be stressors for them. When they feel stress, they want to leave their rooms or groups. Controlled multisensory rooms for the disabilities (ex. Snoezelen), specially designed to deliver various stimuli to them, have been introduced in some special schools and day care centers. However research on the benefits of Snoezelen is still scarce. The first purpose of the present study was to develop a "calm down" space that can be set, used, and removed easily in schools and day care centers. The author considered the concept of "room in room" to relieve children's stress, and the colleague (Godai Embody. Inc) embodied the concept as "COZY Room Standard and Mini." The second purpose of this study was to verify the benefit of the "COZY Room" by the biometric method. This study was an experimental research using a pre-post design and an analytical instrument for salivary amylase activity (sAMY) as biochemical markers. Twenty-two children (14 boys and 8 girls) participated in the measurement. The author collected their saliva samples and measured pre/post-sAMY before and after they used the "COZY Room Standard." A paired t-test was used to compare pre-sAMY with post-sAMY, and the result showed that post-sAMY (mean 37.2±4.87 kIU/1) were significantly lower than pre-sAMY (mean 59.8±6.97 kIU/1). This indicates that the "COZY Room" has the benefit to calm down children with disabilities.

In the present study, we proposed a new text presentation method using two oscillators. To present one character in kana (Japanese syllabary characters), one oscillator presents the number of consonant and subsequently the other oscillator presents the number of vowel by the number of times in vibration. Three experiments were conducted to confirm whether human can recognize characters, words and sentences presented with this method, and to determine optimal stimulus duration and intervals. In experiment 1, the results showed that subjects can understand character information properly with little practice when the duration and the ISI were over 400ms. The total time of duration and ISI determined the character recognition accuracy. The recognition accuracy increases with SOA by 400ms, suggesting that 400ms is the optimal SOA on this method. In the second experiment, the results showed that subjects can recognize words having three or four characters in spite there are individual differences. Finally, we confirmed whether this method is also available for taking messages of approximately 10 Japanese syllabaries. Although stimuli sentences were presented only one time, and subjects did not have an extensive practice, the results showed that the worst accuracy reached 50%.

We have developed an eye movement input device that enables ALS patients to be able to continue to communicate. Development of the device was based on the concept of universal design, with changes in motor function, activities of daily living, as well as the living environments for ALS patients. The device consists of a head unit, which is equipped with a small video camera that weighs 85 g, and a main body, which detects eye movements and produces contact signals for communication. Patients can successfully operate the unit from any head angle or common positions. It is also operable within the illumination range of 15-500001x. We tested the device with an ALS patient who is under home care. This patient was able to successfully operate the device that could signal the housemates by ringing a bell or communicate by character input to a personal computer. In addition, the patient was able to continue communicating by using this device even though the progression of the disease over an approximate 30-month period. In summary, the eye movement input device, which was based on the universal design concept, can be used to assist ALS patients continue to communicate over a long period.

NASA-TLX is a workload assessment method through subjective assessment by the workers themselves. The authors constructed the JSL (Japanese Sign Language) version of NASA-TLX evaluation system in which procedures were instructed by showing the video of sign language. Using the system, we carried out two kinds of experiments; the experiment of a simple computer game with two grade levels of difficulty and the experiment that simulates the dialogue for the hotel reservation on videophones with various framerates. Consequently, we confirmed that the method of measuring the mental workload using JSL version of NASA-TLX could be applied to deaf people.

In transportation and various industrial systems, warning alarms help prevent people from causing accidents. With the growing population of elderly people who may be more assisted by the alarms, this study examined effects of traits of distraction warnings on responses in the elderly. We focused on types of warning sound, those of possible errors that occur in the system, and the timing of alarms. In two cognitive experiments, participants were required to respond accurately and quickly where each target stimulus appeared on the monitor. Alarms informed the location of the target ahead of the appearance of the visual stimulus. As a result, the trait of alarms much affected responses in the elderly group than in the young group. When the alarms were presented in appropriate timings and its information was correct, voice alarms were more effective for promoting correct and fast responses. In contrast, it had a great negative impact on responses for the elderly when the information was incorrect. The elderly participants responded more slowly either after the correct alarms or the incorrect alarms under the situations that false alarms may occur compared to the situations including missing alarms. Our results implied that effective alarm settings may depend age.

To support end-users to create their own services within the Home Network System (HNS, for short), we design and implement a service creation environment, called BAMBEE, in this paper. BAMBEE is designed particularly for non-expert home users without any expertise of the HNS or computer programming. Using a GUI on a touch panel, a user can intuitively create the HNS services that orchestrate multiple networked home appliances. The created services are then tested and deployed on the actual HNS. To evaluate universal design and practical feasibility of BAMBEE, we have conducted usability testing with 24 subjects of 22-72 year-olds from ordinary families. In the experiment, all the subjects were able to complete tasks of service creation. It was also shown that most of the subjects except the group F3 (women aged 50+) expressed high satisfaction in creating own services with BAMBEE.

In this study, effects of assistive technology on subjective performance and objective performance were measured and evaluated under conditions of simulation constraints on vision and hand movement. The results showed both performance measures were affected by simulated constraints and use of assistive technologies. In one of two conditions in which an assistive technology was used performance gains were confirmed but in the other condition performance gains were not achieved. The results suggest that an assistive technology is not always effective if not properly evaluated from multiple aspects and carefully selected and used. Our research is to show feasibility of multiple aspects approach using simulation constrains for evaluation of assistive technologies.

This study is intended to produce a learning support system for middle-aged people and elderly people with acquired visual disabilities. Our investigation results related to learning tools show that the use of Braille and PCs has decreased in classes at our institution. The primary reason is that finger-reading is difficult for people with acquired visual disabilities. Secondly, the Japanese kanji transfer system is an obstacle to keyboard operation of a PC during classes. We propose a pen-based note-taking system, designated as the `Pen-Talker' on ultra mobile PCs for blind people. A novice user with an acquired visual disability is able to input Japanese characters using the proposed system without much training. The system can recognize 3,126 characters including JIS Level 1 characters. This paper describes the system design concept of the pen-based note-taking system. We also investigate a higher recognition engine based on a fusion of an on-line and off-line recognition algorithm, and a voice assistance function for users. Screen information of a display is given to the user via a built-in screen reader in the system. Our present prototype model is useful as a note pad function using a simple button operation. By applying this additional improvement method, the recognition accuracy increased to 93.7% for 20 subjects. This is a much higher accuracy score than those achieved using previous recognition systems. We also received user evaluations describing satisfaction and the quality of life impact of `Pen-Talker'. These results suggest the benefits of practical use of the proposed system.

At the modern universal design society, this paper discusses the usefulness of the urgent collaboration service that is originally proposed by deaf people. They will be in trouble at such the occasion of disasters or accidents. At the very first of the survey many deaf people are asked their difficulties. From the point of context of use, it is best useful, effective and particularly efficient at the deaf patient complaint of pain ache/grief among the selected ten items. Those requirements are drawn visually by pictograms or icons that are easy to understand even such emergency situation. Proposed urgent collaboration service placard is then evaluated by deaf people in the manner of the usability test. The results with this placard are that the time to communicate is shorter for about 30%. The placard is also used by foreign people and is translated into English, Spanish, Korean and Chinese for them. This placard can be also downloaded by specified URL in personal. It is also being proposed to Japanese government to have the available both in the ambulance and hospitals or public spaces.

We propose a novel Japanese Kana input device based on thumb sliding gesture for use without visual feedback, for inconspicuous information access under socially restricted situations. The device has five touch sensors at the corners and the center of a square indentation to allow intuitive Kana input and to provide haptic feedback. The input device combined with a voice-feedback function demonstrated a potential for rapid text input of 60 characters per minute without visual feedback in twenty users.

Recently, a number of medical accidents have been reported over the world. Since many of them are related to medicine, the importance of "Safety in the use of medicine" has attracted a lot of attention. This paper describes an examination of optimum label design of infusion bag aiming at improvement of visibility. Based on the results of an investigation of the management process of infusion bags in a hospital, new experiment was introduced to determine the optimum label design for medical staff. The experimental results suggested the optimum label design should be different between the situation of usage.

In this study, focusing on "Body Image", which takes a part of controlling the precise motions of limbs, we developed the training device to improve the functions of Body Image of hemiplegic upper elbow. As the result, it is clarified that the visual feedback function to display the dynamic behavior of error between the model image of CG and the user's real elbow cause the temporal development of the user's adaptive behavior to the device. The result suggests that biofeedback function realize the function for the rehabilitation of Body Image, and the function generate the mechanism to trigger the chain reaction to let the improvement of the Body Image improve itself.

When we get closer to an object, the size of its image on retinas becomes bigger; and it becomes smaller when we move away. However, we don't perceive that the actual size of the object has changed. This phenomenon is known as 'size constancy'. We perceive an invariable 'size' although the size of the image on the retinas changes every moment. Therefore, we can say that the act of perceiving the size of an object by watching is an active and dynamic act. In this report, we propose a display method that would help users to perceive photographed objects intuitively by using 'size constancy'. A user prepares photographs of objects they are familiar with, and put them on an original background. The user can move the photographs freely on the original background, on which the display sizes of the photographs are automatically modified so as to be in the same reduction/enlargement rate with the background. On this original background, the size of the photograph changes keeping 'size constancy'. The user can perceive the sizes of the objects intuitively by unconsciously comparing them. The effectiveness of this display method is verified by the experiment.

A speech production substitute was proposed for speech disorders that are caused by dysfunction of articulation organs. In this substitution method, the speech synthesis is controlled by a position and a motion of a pen or a finger put on a pointing device without any key input. Therefore, our method allows the users to produce rhythms and prosodies of voices, different from conventional methods that use only text. The first and the second formant frequencies were two dimensionally assigned to the plane of a pen-tablet that corresponds to a position of tongue. First, it was investigated how continuous vowels are heard by tracing the pen-tablet. After a few hours training, a subject with speech disorder succeeded to produce some continuous speech sentences that were apparently perceived as if they have some consonants. Next, in order for the users to easily find the optimal formant transitions to produce the desired consonants, "Guiding Lines" were superimposed on the pen-tablet display. Direction and length of the guiding lines were determined by an "Expanded Locus Theory". From the evaluation tests, it was ascertained that the users may more easily produce the arbitral sentences by tracing the guide lines than conventional one. However, it was still difficult to perceive some consonants having random noise component such as /s/, /h/ and /z/. How the noise component should be added and controlled by user's finger was discussed.