Why do older adults in general show so many problems with the use of new artifacts? These problems have been attributed to cognitive aging and/or perceptual-and-physical/motor aging in previous studies. However, it seems that other aspects may also influence these problems, for example, emotional and/or motivational changes that occur with aging. In this report, we analyzed older adults’ behavior when using a coffee maker, to observe timid behaviors in usability testing (Study 1) and in daily life activities while communicating with other people (Study 2). Results from Study 1 indicated that over half of the older adults in our sample (59.6%) showed “timid” behaviors, such as withdrawing their hand, in the usability test situation. These behaviors were not directly connected to errors or failures in the task, and also could not be explained by anxiety traits alone. In contrast, Study 2 showed that such timid behaviors were less frequent in the community activity, and they only arose when certain situational factors were accumulated. A new explanation for the timidness shown by older adults was proposed, based on the regulatory focus hypothesis of motivation and shifts that occur with age.

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The number of fatal elderly cyclists was extremely large, where a new human interface technology would be effective to avoid such accidents. For clarifying the possible usage of a new technology, we investigated the specific features of elderly cyclists in real-world traffic accidents. The results indicated the lack of confirming safe conditions of cyclists were the most common causes of bicycle accidents with increasing cyclists' age. In fatal cyclists at intersections without traffic lights, the rate of cyclists aged 75 or over was significantly higher than that of cyclists aged 59 or younger. Those results suggest a new technology, e.g., alerting system, could be helpful for elderly cyclists to ride on bicycles safely. Additionally, the real-world accident investigation clarified that fatal or seriously injured cyclist by head impacts against roads were more common at low vehicle speeds. Therefore, we also investigated the types of possible head injuries in cyclists aged 65 or over, using a finite element head model. The results estimated skull fractures and brain injuries that could occur by head impacts against roads for a cyclist aged 65 or over. The detailed head injury information through a new technology could be useful to provide more appropriate medical treatment.

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In this study, we aimed to reveal the characteristics of elder people in dual task performance. We developed a system to evaluate the cognitive function by doing two tasks at the same time which were drawing a spiral and counting the number of changes of background color on a tablet device. The system also had a single task mode of drawing task for comparison with the dual task. We compared the results for ten elderly and ten young people. Elderly showed dexterity decline inside of the spiral. Although there is no significant difference between elderly and young people dexterity in single drawing task, there was a significant difference in dual task. Moreover, elderly showed a significant decrease of dexterity in the dual task compared with the single task. In addition, elderly performance decrease during the counting, due to the increase of the number of changes.

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To evaluate efficacy of spontaneous eyeblink rates to estimate the cognitive functions and sensorimotor abilities of elderly people in handling information devices, two kinds of setups composed of pegboard were constructed. Eyeblink rates observed in normal condition of controlling pegs was significantly decreased and that in condition of controlling pegs without visual information about hands and front arms was significantly increased in comparison with that in rest condition. Further analysis for latter condition revealed the significant negative correlations between age and eyeblink rates. Based on these findings, potential of eyeblink information to detect age related cognitive change was discussed.

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Recently, many tactile guide maps have been installed at various public facilities. In a tactile guide map, raised dot patterns and boundary lines convey information about the area. These raised dot patterns and boundary lines are spaced so that tactile guide map users can distinguish the lines easily. In this study, we investigated how spacing influences the discrimination of the raised boundary lines from the raised dot patterns by visually impaired expert users. We fabricated test pieces with seven different dot distances for dot patterns and five different space distances, by placing UV-curable polymers on thin paper. The participants included 35 visually impaired expert users (20 younger and 15 older ones). The participants were asked to identify the direction of a line, which could be horizontal, vertical, or diagonally up right or left. The results showed that the boundary lines were highly distinguishable when the distance between the raised dot patterns and raised boundary lines was more than 4 mm for visually impaired expert users. This information will be helpful for tactile guide map designers.

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Behavioral and Psychiatric Symptoms of Dementia(BPSD) such as wandering and violence are problems in care fields. But some caregivers provide the care that reduce the BPSD. We found that understanding the situation of people with dementia is effective to accomplish this. We considered that a mechanism for objective evaluation is necessary for care. Therefore we developed a dementia assessment system utilizing multimodal observed information. We have conducted practical experiments to confirm if the system is effective for different caregivers. The results show that visualizing the difference of recognition among different caregivers can effective to increase awareness. Different caregivers could use multimodal observed information with the system to understand people with dementia with more understanding.

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[Aim] The aim of this study is constructing predictive models for vital and quality of life (QOL) prognosis and dementia risk in the elderly, and examining the prediction accuracy of these models. We also proposed a mobile Social Diagnosis Instrument (m-SDI), a tool that can be used practically in the medical, caregiving, and insurance fields, by utilizing the results of the prediction models to evaluate preventative care and support strategies for independent living of the elderly. [Method] We conducted a regression analysis based on the results of a survey on activities of daily living, QOLs (physical component summary; PCS and mental component summary; MCS), cognitive function, low nutrition risk, and actual living circumstances of the residents in a village in Nagano prefecture (2007, 2014). [Results] For men and women respectively: (1) vital prognosis: R²=0.324 and R²=0.302 (2) QOL (PCS): R²=0.325 and R²=0.090. [Summary] Predictive models require further improvements, including addition of other question items, to make it more practical. m-SDI uses a tablet device and allows responses to be input easily during a home visit, thereby appropriate lifestyle guidance can be provided to individuals while perusing their diagnostics results.

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When you operate buttons on electronic devices, you often hear a feedback sound like a "beep". Recently, a lot of touchscreens are used as user interfaces (UIs) on electrical devices, but a touchscreen doesn't give tactile feedback. In addition, there are two kinds of touchscreens; those which can give visual feedback and those which can’t. In this paper, we evaluated the effectiveness of operation feedback sound on touchscreens. We prepared five kinds of software applications, all with different sound timings of feedback sound, including one without sound. Using these applications, we carried out two experiments, one with visual feedback and the other without. As a result, we found the following: (1) operation mistakes can be reduced by a feedback sound, (2) operation time is reduced mainly by visual feedback, however, feedback sound can reduce operation time on the UI without visual feedback, (3) regarding operation feeling, users feel uneasiness or uncertainty without a feedback sound, and (4) the best sound timing is to only have a feedback sound when a button is touched. We are going to make some guidelines for Sound UI design including these results.

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Hardness identification is one of the most important tactile senses for acupuncturists. For example, during palpation, acupuncturists identify stiffness in the muscle by using their hands and identifying the hardness. In acupuncturist schools, the students practice palpating with weak press force in order to not cause pain to their patients. However, the acupuncturist school teachers cannot objectively evaluate their fundamental technique of palpation. In this study, to determine the relation between the press force and the characteristics of hardness identification, we investigated the differential threshold of hardness for different press forces. We used seven elastic test pieces with different Young’s moduli on the assumption of palpation as the presented stimuli. We conducted an experiment using the constant stimuli method to calculate differential threshold of hardness as one evaluation index of hardness identification when using the thumb. The results of the experiment showed that in the case of weaker press force, the differential threshold of hardness increased. This knowledge will be useful for evaluating fundamental human identification of hardness.

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We present a new 3D printing technique that can print a horizontal plate in-mid-air by setting up pillars as support structures. Using this technique, we extend a platform and capability of fused deposition modeling printers. Our technique allows users to print a large amount of objects in one complete printing process. In addition, users can control a printer using the remote access so that our technique does not require users to remove previously printed ones. In this paper, we describe in detail a technique to print a horizontal plate in-mid-air, and implement a layout design system for effectively using our technique. We show the effectiveness of our technique by printing examples.

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In UX designing, we sometimes propose a new concept product or service, focusing on user experience value. In this case, it is desirable to conduct concept evaluation at an early stage to confirm the direction of development. However, the method to reasonably conduct a concept test at a stage when the product or service is not concrete enough remains unclear. In this study, we analyzed the effect of results from the differences in the expressions of the following 3 concept sentences: (A) expression showing only the experience value; (B) expression with usage scene in addition to the experience value; and (C) expression with function in addition to the experience value. As a result, we found that A could reasonably evaluate “the degree of matching the needs” and “novelty”, and that C could reasonably evaluate “sympathy”. In this study, therefore, we suggest a two-stage concept test method in which we first present only the experience value to evaluate the degree of matching the needs and then present the usage scene to evaluate sympathy.

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In the present study, we tested the hypothesis that emotional interaction with a robot mitigates negative impressions toward its appearance. In an experiment, participants were asked to interact with either a good-looking or bad-looking robot and to answer questionnaires to assess their impression of the robots before and after the interaction. The results suggested that intimacy with the bad-looking robot improved after interaction, confirming our hypothesis.

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There are some foot pointing devices that allow upper limb disabilities to use a computer. However, some devices are for exclusive use and very expensive. Moreover, it is need to compare of these devices from the viewpoint of usability. Therefore, in this paper, we developed a foot pointing device using Wii Balance Board. The device employed a method of inputting a coordinate of a point by an experiment. Moreover, a drift error and a random error were reduced. Then, we conducted an experiment for healthy university students to compare the developed system with other commercially available foot pointing devices. The results showed that the system is useful as well as the most useful foot pointing device at least the healthy young people.

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We carried out experiments to investigate the relationship between display resolution and physiological and psychological state during the viewing of 4K and 2K content on a 65-inch 4K TV as a comparison between age groups. During viewing tests of 4K scenic content by participants in their 20s and 50s, psychological evaluation scores and NIRS, an index of nervous system activity, were significantly higher during 4K scenic content viewing than for 2K viewing. However, the effect of the display resolution for content comprising video images of fine objects such as food, jewels, watches, glass and fur, was limited compared to that for scenic content between age groups. Our results suggest that content viewing at 4K tends to cause psychological elation and a surge in brain activity, although the effects varied somewhat according to content, and these effects of display resolution on physiological and psychological state were found regardless of age groups.

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We propose a model of predicting the visibility of the images composed of background and character colors. Our proposed model employs the multi-stage color model to predict the visibility of color schemes. The multi-stage color model is one of human color vision models, which is composed of some response stages. Our model simulates the process of the human color vision with the multi-stage color model and predicts the visibility of color schemes on each response stage. We collected data on the visibility of color scheme with paired comparison tests and evaluated our proposed model. The results of the experiments suggest that our proposed model can be used to predict the visibility of colors chemes.

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