This article reports the result of verifying the stress process that stressor leads chronic stress in working time. To verify all the stress process, we designed a new questionnaire that could measure an existence of stressor, cognitive appraisal, and coping in daily working time with decreasing respondent’s load. And we used the existing monthly chronic stress scale (Perceived Stress Scale: PSS). The survey data from self-report questionnaires were analyzed using multiple regression analysis, in which explained variable (y) was chronic stress, and explanatory variables (x) were factors of the stress process. Results suggest that the number of negative stressor (β = 0.68), the number of coping for negative stressor (β = －0.43) were important compared with other explanatory variables (β = 0.00～0.20). Furthermore, the comparison of multiple regression analysis including personality factors suggest that the influence of personality factors was weak.

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Train driving is characterized by late-night and early-morning shifts when operators may be prone to drowsiness. This study developed and evaluated a system aimed at maintaining and improving arousal level by presenting auditory warnings. First, auditory warnings were designed based on survey of the opinions of train operators. In preliminary experiment, designated auditory warnings were scored in terms of three conditions (“audibility,” “distinctiveness,” and “arousal function”) by impression evaluation. In Experiment 1, an auditory warning consisting of an ascending chromatic scale was selected by paired comparison method as most promising even over train noise. In Experiment 2, the arousal effects of the warning auditory selected in Experiment 1 were evaluated by presenting it during a monotonous task with the train driver environment. The result shows that reaction time and facial expression evaluation level in the task was significantly improved. In addition, the decrease of heart rate and high score on subjective evaluation of the arousal effect of the auditory warning were confirmed. Furthermore, the effect of the auditory warning for preventing arousal-level decline during train operation was confirmed.

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The declining tendency of children's throwing ability due to the decrease in opportunities to play outdoors in recent years has been recognized as a problem. In light of this situation, instruction on throwing motion was newly added to physical education classes in the 2020 Courses of Study for elementary school students. However, the teaching method is left to the discretion of each teacher, and at present, no effective teaching method has been established to improve children's throwing ability. Under such circumstances, the use of the javelic ball has been attracting attention as a new teaching method for the throwing motion. While there have been some studies that have verified the effectiveness of this method, quantitative analysis of the movement factors has not yet been sufficiently conducted. In this study, we conduct throwing exercise classes using the javelic ball and other two types of softballs for lower grade elementary school students, and analyze their throwing motion before and after the classes using image processing technology.

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Sudden occurrences of disasters often agitate people emotionally and make their planned evacuation activities difficult. However, the biological responses to natural disaster situations have not been investigated. This study aimed to: 1) discover the difference in emotional responses between earthquake video-watching and neutral video-watching conditions, and 2) investigate the relationship between emotional responses during watching an earthquake video and subjective emotion assessment/individual anxiety traits. Healthy young adults (n = 12) watched earthquake and neutral videos, and we measured biological signals and performed emotional assessment. We measured biological signals, such as pulse rate and cerebral blood flow in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, using a wearable two-channel near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) unit. Autonomic nerve indexes (sympathetic and parasympathetic indexes) were calculated from the NIRS data. Subjective emotion assessment was made using the Self-Assessment Manikin. The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory Questionnaire was also performed. We found that sympathetic nerve activity was significantly lower in the earthquake video-watching condition than during the neutral one. Biological indicators inferred both subjective emotion assessment during watching the earthquake video and individual anxiety traits. Autonomic indices based on 2-channel NIRS data may be able to estimate emotional responses to different stimuli.

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In this report, we focus on the nodding movement itself and show the results of evaluating the impressions of the various nodding movements. As a side note, we focus on three components of the nodding movement: “the depth of the nod”, “the number of nods”, and “the required time for one nod”. The impression evaluation obtained by the SD method was factor-analyzed. As the results of factor analysis, three factors were extracted: familiarity, activeness, and sincerity. And we also confirm the relationship between “three components of the nodding movement” and “three factors extracted from the results of factor analysis”. Furthermore, based on the results of evaluating the impression, various nodding movements are categorized. The results can contribute to the realization of a communication support system that is attuned to the feelings and circumstances of the user.

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A paradigm shift is taking place from the era of buying common off-the-shelf products to that of buying personalized products. In this study, we modeled salesclerks’ utterances and performed experimental evaluation of using a communication robot in bespoke scenes, which is a sales method of customized products. First, we extracted the model of the expert salesclerks’ utterances that is useful for improving satisfaction in suit bespoke by comparison with novice salesclerks. Next, we modeled customers’ emotions evoked in bespoke scenes. Then, we analyzed how the robot’s speech based on the model of utterances evoked customers’ emotions. As a result, we revealed that the speech that encouraged the customer’s decision was useful for improving the customers’ satisfaction.

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Promoting system automation provide increased safety. However, there is concern that reduced human-system interaction may result in decreased arousal level and loss of the ability to perform. Thus, maintaining adequate arousal level in safety-critical operations is one of most important issues. Conventional approaches to maintaining arousal level are mainly based on external stimulation, but these can be accompanied by discomfort. In our previous study, as a new option to add to conventional methods, we proposed the method by inducing intrinsic motivation through voice prompts, and the proposed method has larger effect in maintaining arousal level than a method using voice of general driving-related information. However, the difference in the intensity of the effect on maintaining arousal level compared to existing methods has not been clarified. Thus, we compared the effectiveness of the method of inducing intrinsic motivation with that of existing methods (i.e., beep sound, vibration, peppermint scent, and chewing gum) in maintaining arousal level through the experiment performing a monitoring task, simulating autonomous driving. From the results of subjective assessment, physiological indices, and performance, the proposed method achieved the same effects as vibration or chewing gum and resulted in reduced discomfort compared with beep sound and vibration.

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Although many chatbot applications have been proposed to support mental health care, the effective interaction design for chatbots to assist positive thinking for problem-solving without relying on the content of individual consultation is not clear. In this paper, we developed a chatbot application that can perform conversation tasks based on the Miracle Question, a method of the solution-focused approach. Then we validated that solution-focused interactive task on chatbot helps improve well-being index and active behavior. As a result, the results did not confirm that the proposed conversation task significantly improved the scores on each scale. However, when compared to existing tasks for behavior activation support, the proposed task tended to have a positive effect on improving well-being scores. Our finding has implications for the methodology and difficulties in supporting personal problem-solving based on minimal design.

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Conversational agent that anthropomorphizes daily items could be a useful means of drawing the user’s attention to the object and providing effective guidance. However, many previous attempts have focused on physical robotization, and it is not clear how the introduction of linguistic anthropomorphic conversations into these conversational agents will affect the user’s sense of familiarity with the objects and feeling that the objects themselves are speaking to them. We focused on four elements of anthropomorphic expression and investigated how adding these elements to plain text changes the way humans perceive machine and non-machine artifacts. As a result, it was clarified that when anthropomorphic elements is added to the text, it become easier to perceive the object itself is speaking and enhances feelings of attachment and familiarity. This tendency is significantly seen in the younger generation.

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Consumers generally prefer to touch products before they purchase them. Haptic information and the act of touching itself increase the preference for a product. We hypothesized that object preferences would increase for virtual objects handled virtually without haptic feedback. We tested this hypothesis in a preference judgment experiment using virtual reality technology. The participants kept their hands in front of a screen and touched objects shown on the screen using virtual hands displayed on the screen without haptic feedback. In Experiment 1, the participants compared two apples on the screen by touching one apple using the two virtual hands and the other using a mouse cursor. The results indicated that participants preferred the apples they touched using the virtual hands more than those touched with the cursor. In the second experiment, participants compared images of two apples, one they could handle using their virtual hands and the other inside a transparent ball so they could not touch it. The results showed that participants preferred the apples they could directly touch to those they could not touch. These findings indicate that virtually touching virtual objects affect preferences for the objects even in the absence of haptic feedback.

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