This study examines the assumptions, perceptions, and attitudes towards contemporary robots in different cultures. As culture affects the way technology is perceived, it is essential to explore the psychological reactions through different cultures towards different designs of robots. Only a few studies have examined attitudes towards robots or dealt with the assumptions in a specific culture. The present study determines the influence of crucial factors like culture, prior exposure to robots through the media, and personal experiences of the emotions towards robots and examines the cultural differences between Europe and Japan.

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In this study, we investigated psychological effects of character design for gaining good evaluation, and tried to apply rough set analysis to design of mascot characters. In Studies 1 and 2, we examined how the shapes of the parts constituting mascot characters influenced their impression and how the impression of a character varied the evaluation. In Study 1, using 12 popular mascot characters, we examined which part shapes of mascot characters affected good evaluation. In Study 2, we made new mascot characters which had more various combinations of part shapes than in Study 1. The results of Studies 1 and 2 indicated that high “lightweightness” impressions increased character's evaluations. Therefore, we extracted the combinations of the shapes which increased “lightweightness” impression. The results suggested that the part shapes of eyes consisting of white and black parts may be important for getting good evaluation on mascot characters.

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When looking at visual patterns, we receive various impressions such as goodness, complexity, and beauty. This study was conducted to identify the stimulus factors giving rise to impressions of order and disorder. We presented two visual patterns simultaneously with manipulation of the stimulus factors of gathering. Participants reported which pattern was more disorderly. Gathering index was defined to indicate the degree of gathering of elements in the pattern. Results showed that the disorder ranking value calculated from the responses increased as the value of gathering decreased. Results also showed that the disorder ranking value decreased as the number of local repetition in the whole stimulus increased only when the gathering value was small. From the results of present study, we conclude that factors of gathering and repetition affect impression of order and disorder. We suggest that the gathering value indicates whether there are any objects or not in the pattern and the repetition value indicates whether there are any texture or not. Objects and textures seem to be the important concept to analyze or recognize visual patterns for human. Therefore, we can suppose the impression of order and disorder tells us whether there is meaningful information in visual patterns.

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A pose generation system expressing feelings and the state is proposed in this paper. The most important contribution of this paper is proposal of a pose generation system with high expression ability. Generally, gestures are composed of pose, facial expression and the movement. This paper treats pose and facial expression. The proposed system generates a pose in accord with the image that the user wants to make, and it outputs avatars with the poses. The operation and the usage of the system are very simple, and high quality avatars with poses can be obtained. First, a user chooses onomatopoeias which are close to the image of the pose that the user wants to create. Onomatopoeia is a word, or occasionally, a grouping of words, with a sound imitating the sound it is describing, such as “buzz” for a bee and “moo” for a cow. Then the system determines the initial values of the parameters to constitute a pose from the chosen onomatopoeias. Various poses can be generated by interactive genetic operations based on the initial values, and they are displayed to the user. Then the user selects and evaluates his/her favorite poses, and the system learns preference of the user based on the evaluations. In this way, interactive genetic operations are performed and more and more suitable poses are generated. Furthermore, since addition of facial expression is possible, various feeling/state expressions are realized. In addition, the poses are expressed in a 3D space, a viewpoint can be changed freely on the screen. Effectiveness of the proposed system is confirmed through evaluation experiments.

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This research topic focuses on how textile product styles, colors and designs, utilizing the digital inject printing technology, affect consumers' purchasing intention and behavior. Digital inject printing is a revolutionary innovation of fabric printing technology in the textile manufacturing process, through which the data can be utilized to monitor the textile printing quality; and to overcome the traditional fabric printing limitation. This research uses 12 pictures that feature different pattern designs in different styles and colors to analyze how customers will favor each one of the different combinations. Based on the 12 pictures, we will get a better understanding on the elements of the designs that are more preferred by interviewees with different attributes. The results show that interviewees in older age, higher monthly income, and greater monthly disposable income, have a distinct preference in images of classic and modern designs in bright, cool/warm color mixing. They also signify their preference of silky, soft and smooth hand-felt material. This research finding on styles and colors and pattern preferences represents provide in-depth insight for future of new product development for different client bases through the innovative applications of digital inject printing technology.

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Sitting in the comfort of chairs is an important factor of daily life, but leg swelling results in languor of lower legs and decreases sitting comfort. Many studies have examined the mechanism of increased leg swelling; however, few have investigated the mechanism of decrease leg swelling. We studied the effect of the footrest angle on decreases in leg swelling by measuring leg swelling with bioelectrical impedance method (BI method) and blood flow with near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). We performed the sitting experiment with six volunteers. It comprised three parts; (1) lying supine for 20 minutes to alleviate leg swelling, (2) sitting on a high stool for 30 minutes to increase leg swelling, (3) sitting on a trial chair with a footrest for 30 minutes to decrease leg swelling in order to research the differences among three footrest angles (0°, 15°, and 30°). By the results of the BI method, leg swelling increased by sitting on the high stool and decreased by sitting on the trial chair with a 30° footrest. By the results of NIRS, the quantity of deoxygenated hemoglobin (deOXY-Hb) increased by sitting on the high stool and the quantity of oxygenated hemoglobin (OXY-Hb) increased by sitting on the trial chair. In comparison of leg swelling and blood flow, it is considered that increases in deOXY-Hb influences gains in leg swelling, and increases in OXY-Hb influences reductions in leg swelling.

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This research aims to provide evaluation criteria for fashion literacy, determine fashion literacy levels and literacy of design students, and to serve as a reference for school curriculum design. The research was divided into two stages: the first was experts interviews on grounded theory in practice and the formation of criteria for evaluating fashion literacy; the second was a questionnaire based on the criteria. We show that both quantitative and qualitative research revealed strong correlations, and based on exploratory factor analysis, the research defined fashion literacy as cultural cultivation, fashion sensitivity and professional skills which can be used by individuals to communicate with the outside world and solve problems, different departments elicit highly significant differences in the professional skills factor. Schools are recommended to incorporate theoretical and practical courses to help students learn more about culture and inspire their creativity in regard to design and increase students' competitive advantage.

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We present two experiments to understand the relation between the attributes of physical movement and emotional elicitation. For the experiments, we developed a physical movement generation device. Four attributes of physical movement, speed, smoothness, granularity, and volume, were identified from the review of existing theories. These attributes were used as control parameters in our study. We used the affective grid with pleasure and arousal to identify the relation between the types of physical movement and specific emotions. The results demonstrated that physical movement can easily evoke some areas of emotion. In particular, it was found that emotions in both pleasure and arousal dimension were positively correlated with speed. Finally, we discuss the implications of the results and how physical movement can enhance emotional qualities in the design of interactive products.

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