Visual graphics can be accessible by raising the lines of the graphics and converting printed letters into Braille. When this conversion is done on demand of individual blind person, it is called private tactile graphic conversion service, which has not been yet established as a common welfare service for the blind in Japan. Thus, for the future prevalence of this service, a nation-wide user survey was conducted. Among 202 respondents, only 16 people (7.6 %) were using this service. The top provider of this service was Braille transcription circles, followed by Braille libraries, Braille transcription volunteers, and friends and acquaintances. The top converted graphics were maps. Two thirds of the clients were using these services at a frequency of once or less in a few months. The problems faced in using these services were long waiting times for the graphics to be converted, hardness to understand the tactile graphics, and the problems accompanying tactile graphics production. An additional survey for Braille libraries' Web sites proved the scarcity of tactile graphic conversion service providers.

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Nowadays, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) makes rapid progress in our community life and healthcare support system. Our objective was to explore the effect of tele-rehabilitation on memory impairment after traumatic brain injury. Studies about tele-rehabilitation on memory in adults with traumatic brain injury were reviewed. Four database searches were conducted: MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, CINAHL, and PsycINFO. Of the 523 studies identified in the search, 8 studies (including 2 RCTs) met the inclusion criteria, which involved 207 participants. There were 12 kinds of remote intervention: television assisted controlled prompting, Google Calendar, spaced retrieval training as errorless learning, and so on. A common evaluation index; Community Integration Questionnaire (CIQ) was conducted in two studies. Results from several studies indicated that remote interventions on memory impairment improve the proportion of prospective intentions completed in the patients’ daily life. Further research and meta-analysis are needed based on RCTs.

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In recent years, long-term, continuous distant-care has been drawing an attention to maintain elderly persons' healthy life expectancy. And under such circumstances, a novel approach of distant-care system has been proposed, in which the elderly persons are represented by an avatar, protecting their privacy. In this paper, we empirically examine the technology acceptance of an avatar-mediated distant-care system in elderly persons. The study employs one-factor (avatar-mediated distant-care system vs. image based distant-care system) with-in participant design and evaluate by using a questionnaire. We had 34 participants and an average age of participants was 70.4. As the results of experiment, participants rated that the avatar-mediated distant-care system was less discomfort, have less risk of privacy violation, and more likable than the image based distant-care system. We conclude, from above results, that the avatarmediated distant-care system had advantageous properties in technology acceptance for elderly persons than the image based distant-care system.

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Children with severe/profound and multiple disabilities (SMD) have speech difficulties because of the severity of their mental and physical disabilities. To enable communication function in such patients, communication aids (CAs) with key guards for minimizing errors caused by involuntary movements are used. This article describes an action research to investigate the most accessible and usable combination of CAs and key guards for a 9-year-old participant with SMD. We prepared some key guards and assessed the percentage of correct key operations that occurred when the participant sent messages using three CAs. The key guards were developed using corrugated boards, and the depth and size of the keys were varied. Psychometric methods were utilized in individual training sessions for using these CAs with key guards, and the results revealed the most accessible key guard for minimizing the participant’s errors. When the participant used the key guards during class at his special school, one of the authors observed and adjusted the settings of the CA’s interface (e.g., key layouts and recorded voice messages) to enable easier use. Through these practices, the frequency of CA usage and number of output messages gradually increased. These results indicate that (1) the accessibility and usability of CAs and key guards should be assessed using psychometric methods and quantitative indexes and (2) the fitters of CAs should evaluate the accessibility and usability of CAs through qualitative evaluation (e.g., observation of behavior) and improve CA interfaces according to the users’ living situation and settings.

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As an educational tool for hearing-impaired students, tactile information system is another possibility in addition to the popular visual information tool. We created an assisting system that uses tactile stimulation for educational scenes: SZFOX (SynchroniZed Focused Operation eXaggerator) tells the instructor’s PC manipulation by the tactile approach. This system was experimented through a test with subjects carrying some task out on a computer with and without the tactile system SZFOX. The result shows that the tactile system is efficient in notifying a timing of manipulation. Meanwhile, the result also suggests that the reverb of tactile stimulation could be a distractive element for subjects.

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We had shown experimental results on prosody of languages characterized by real-time dialogue such as speech, sign language, finger braille and so on. These results were discussed along with various research results both from inside and outside Japan. Based on the results, we examined a structure that enabled real-time dialogue with a light mental burden. Furthermore, we will propose a model which makes real-time dialogue possible by elucidating information structures of various languages characterized by real-time dialogue. The model to be proposed can explain various phenomena in real-time dialogue.

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A passive haptic interface based on the damping brake of a DC motor was used to present surface roughness. Virtual roughness stimuli were expressed by using periodic resistance forces caused by switching the damping brake on and offat regular intervals. We investigated the ability of humans to discriminate such roughness stim uli through information transfer and signal detection theory. Our results revealed that the passive haptic interface can present three to four levels of roughness stimuli without confusion, which is slightly inferior to an active-type haptic interface.

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Researches on communication robots are expanding roles of them in various situations. In this study, by focusing on personalities of communication robots, we have developed kiroPi, which is a tablet-based robot by installing embodied hardware. Results of two experiments show that voice interaction and entrained motions can build up more personality of kiroPi. In addition to that, consideration of instrumentality is thought to be important in characterization of robots, because results suggested that personality can promote continued use only if instrumentality is not decreased.

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Various eye-controlled interfaces using voluntary action have been devel oped in recent years. In contrast to a major method using divergence eye movement as voluntary input, we focus on pupil constriction along with convergence. PupilShutter is an intelligent system that tells what you are gazing by detecting voluntary convergence eye movement with a wearable single eye-camera. When the pupil constriction is detected,a visual eld image is trimmed based on the gazing point and an annotation sound is produced by analyzing the trimmed image. In order to conrm the possibility of the use of pupil constriction as input, we measured the change of pupil diameter during near look operation. The result indicated that pupil constriction by near look operation can be used for the input of the system. Then, a user study was conducted to evaluate the usability of the system as an annotation interface by eye capture. As a result, the proposed method scored 99.2 % precision. Therefore, the system enables users to get information of the gazing object by near look operation when they want to know.

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Tablet devices have become popular and various note-taking applications are now avail able. For the purpose of rapid note-taking while using a handwriting application on a tablet device, Kitani and Nakatani proposed a unique menu manipulation named \Palm Lift Manipulation (PLM)". PLM invokes a context menu by means of a function called Palm Rejection, which distinguishes the difference between stylus nibs and palm touches. In this paper, we had experiments and compared PLM and other menus concerning the menu invocation interactions and the menu invocation positions. For the menu invocation interactions, the menu invocation interaction of PLM, Bezel Swipe and Long Tap are compared. For the menu positions, a left edge, a stylus nib and an under palm are compared. Through the experiments, when the menu position is set on a left edge, the menu invocation interaction of PLM shows signi?cant difference to Bezel Swipe and Long Tap.

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Walking-while-texting on mobile phones has become a large social problem because conflict accidents with other people frequently occur in the traffic areas such as the station yards. Applications to prevent the walking-while-texting have already been launched, but they do not seem to be used commonly. In this paper, we have considered two new view points, an internal factor of screen watching and an external factor of environmental risk conditions in referring to the knowledge obtained by the group interview. We have developed a new system to timely alert to the walking-while-texting user by using a smartphone application and environmental measurement sensors. As a result of comparison of the proposed system to the application officially provided by NTT docomo, we successfully achieved the application efficiency, the effect of prevention of walking-while-texting, improving momentary user experience and raising intention to use.

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Disuencies in spontaneous speech is often regarded as speaker's speech error, and it is often explained by attributing it to the internal mechanism of the speaker. On the other hand, it can also be regarded that disuencies were created as a result of the interaction between the speaker and the hearer. From this point of view, an utterance generation system “Talking-Ally” has been constructed. In this study, the objective is to explore the factors that create disuencies by a constructive approach. In particular, it focuses on the conversation adjustment function related to maintaining the conversational situation when the hearer's eye-gaze deviates from the conversation. First, we constructed a model to adjust the utterance strategies while adapting it to the hearer, then conducted an interaction experiment by using this model. And we discussed how disuencies of utterances can work.

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The psychophysiological state of users viewing high dynamic range (HDR) and standard dynamic range (SDR) content on a 58-inch 4K TV were experimentally estimated. Factors such as subjectivity assessment, blink rate, heart rate variability (the level of sympathetic nerve activity: LF/HF), and near-infrared spectroscopic (NIRS) topography were measured. The results showed that the scores for “presence,” “impact,” “dynamic,” “feeling of depth,” and “quality” when viewing 4K-HDR content were significantly higher compared with those for 4K-SDR content. Moreover, the LF/HF ratio was significantly lower when viewing 4K-HDR video content compared with when viewing 4K-SDR video content. Our results suggest that viewing 4K-HDR content might cause psychological elation and suppression of sympathetic nerve activity, although the effects may slightly vary based on the content.

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Interpersonal distance is one of the elements for smooth communication. On the other hand, scenes where humanoid robots are used are increasing in recent years. Therefore, if the interpersonal distance for a robot is able to be controlled, it becomes possible to lead the person to the appropriate position from a robot based on the role of the robot. In this research, we verify the controllability of human's interpersonal distance by using color of robot clothes. As a result of the experiment, it was shown that the distance increased in the cold color compared with the warm color in the chromatic color, and the distance increased in the black color compare with the white color. In addition, it was shown that women are more sensitive to the color influenced. And the distance becomes smaller so that the participants felt that the robot seems to be homogeneous.

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