This study was designed to investigate phonophobia to household noises for the purpose of exploring comfortable sound space for migraine patients. The study involved 16 patients with migraine and 24 healthy volunteers. Each subject was exposed to stimulus sounds and was asked to make sensitive evaluation of comfort/discomfort. Twenty kinds of stimulus sounds in 4 categories (animal voices, natural sounds, emotional sounds, and excessive noises/sirens) under 2 settings (high and low sound pressure levels with a gradient of 10 dBA) (40 kinds in total) were tested. As a result, the migraine group reacted more sensitively to changes in the stimulus sound than the healthy control group, and this inter-group difference was more marked under the high sound pressure setting. Household noises found to be unacceptable for migraine patients were “animal voices” and “excessive noises/sirens,” and those acceptable for migraine patients were “natural sounds” and “emotional sounds.” The latter two types of sound (“natural sounds” and “emotional sounds”) were shown to have the potential of alleviating migraine when they are at low sound pressure level.

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This paper aims to present a novel methodology for real time monitoring of Internal Emotion State (Mental Stress). The method does not require any contact as contact measurement tend to effect emotions and burden physiologically. We have found out that user stress is correlated with the increased blood flow in three facial areas of sympathetic importance which is periorbital, supraorbital and maxillary. This increased blood flow dissipates convective heat which can be monitored through thermal imaging. In the stress experiment conducted, blood vessel is also detected via thermal imaging for several subjects in real time. Thermal infrared and visible cameras are being used in the stimulus experiment. Sample of several faces are also taken in real time in our experimental setup to measure the effectiveness of our method. Almost 98% of correct measurement of ROI and temperature was detected. The results of temperature before and after stress stimulus experiment are also compared and show promising results.
In this paper also, a new method for detecting facial feature in both thermal and visual is presented by applying Nostril Mask, which allows one to find facial feature namely nose area in thermal and visual. Graph Cut algorithm is applied to remove unwanted ROI and correctly detect precise temperature values. Extraction of thermal-visual facial feature images is done by using Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT) Feature detector and extractor to verify the method of using nostril mask. Based on the experiment conducted, it shows 88.6% of correct matching.
An Accurate and efficient thermal-infrared camera calibration is also important for advancing computer vision research approach for geometrically calibrating individual and multiple cameras in both thermal and visible modalities. We also propose new printed Fever Cold Plaster (FCP) chessboard using a popular existing approach which is comparatively accurate and simple to execute. Based on the experiment conducted by comparing the degradation of image quality with the current approach, our proposed chessboard can be more clearly located than those on the applied standard chessboard by 39%.

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The aim of this study was to examine the effects of a lighting atmosphere created by light-emitting diodes (LEDs) on consumers' emotional states of pleasure, arousal and dominance, as well as on their spatial impressions of a restaurant. The results demonstrate that in a restaurant, LED 2700 K has a greater tendency to emphasize pleasurable aspects of the atmosphere than LED 5600 K. The results also indicated that 5600 K causes greater arousal than 2700 K. A warm color temperature increases participants' sensation of privacy. Moreover, participants' sensations of pleasure, arousal, dominance, and spaciousness increase with increasing illuminance. Conversely, a decrease of illuminance leads to an increased sense of privacy. The interaction between color temperature and illuminance shows that the combination of 2700 K and 500 Lux conveys the greatest sense of pleasure, while a medium illuminance of 2700 K and 300 Lux conveys the greatest sense of clarity.

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This paper presents a statistics-based interactive evolutionary computation (IEC) method for color scheme searches. Generally, people who do not have sufficient skill or knowledge of colors need to devote considerable time and effort to creating color schemes. To overcome this problem, we propose a statistics-based interactive genetic algorithm and four similarity search functions. This combination allows users to easily and effectively obtain appropriate color schemes. To investigate the performance of the proposed method, we conducted two experiments and confirmed that the implemented application of the proposed method allows users to obtain a desired color scheme in less than 48 s. We also confirmed that the proposed method could provide users favorable recolored illustrations in less than 52 s. In addition, we confirmed that the search ability of the proposed method is superior to that of the conventional IEC method through a comparison experiment.

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We examined how impressions related to women's clothing coordination are integrated from those for component garments. With Experiment 1, we showed that four factors determine impressions for women's clothing: girlishness, elegance, gaudiness, and casualness. In Experiment 2, participants rated impressions about these four factors for clothing coordination and its component garments, and also rated the likability of coordination. Results clarified that the impression for women's clothing coordination can be described as an additive integration from impressions for component garments and that it can be affected by the likability of coordination as an interactive term of component garments. Results suggest that effects of the interaction between impressions for component garments on the impression for clothing coordination vary depending on impression factors. The contribution of the interaction between impressions for component garments to the impression for the clothing coordination was high on elegant impression and low on gaudy impression.

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The purpose of our study is to investigate the effect of clothing pressure on physiological and psychological responses in order to create a method for evaluation of clothing comfort. We get much information through visual sensation, so studies on the influences of visual information on clothing pressure sensation is very important. In this paper, we have measured physiological and psychological responses in the clothing pressure sensation under 3 visual conditions; Condition 1 was that the subjects had their eyes open and looked forward, Condition 2 was that the subjects looked at themselves in a mirror, and Condition 3 was that the subjects without a waist belt look at other subjects who wore a fastened waist belt. We concluded that it is important to consider the effects of visual information as well as the effect of clothing pressure sensation in the evaluation of clothing comfort sensation.

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This paper proposes a method of evaluating impressions using a space containing impression words. The impression of an object is specified by circling impression words that match its impression. The degree of matching of the impression is expressed by the darkness of the color used to paint the circled area. This method is called the Impression Evaluation Method by Space (IEMS). The IEMS considers the vagueness of Kansei. The IEMS poses few restrictions to users evaluating an impression, while the semantic differential (SD) method evaluates an impression in a predefined range for enabling statistical processing. A prototype system is implemented to evaluate the IEMS. This system enables a subject to evaluate their impression of a picture by using the IEMS. An impression evaluation experiment is carried out on several pictures to compare with conventional methods, such as the SD method. Various results of evaluation are obtained from this experiment, and consideration is conducted. Finally, it is shown that the proposed method can evaluate the aspects that other methods cannot. The IEMS enables users to express the degree that they feel in the continuous manner, the opposite feelings at the same time, and the feeling among several impression words. It also enables them to add the impression words that they want to use, and not to enforce the evaluation through all of the impression words.

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There is a demand for the objective evaluation of emotion. Thus, ρ_min has previously been suggested as a psychophysiological excitement index to meet this demand in various applications. ρ_min is the minimum value of the cross-correlation coefficient between the respiratory sinus arrhythmia components of heart rate variability (HRV) and the respiratory wave, considering the lag time. In this study, the feasibility of using this index was verified in an experiment in which the ρ_min values of the physiological responses of individuals playing games, which were classified according to the level of difficulty, were analyzed. Three major results were obtained in the analyses. First, the ρ_min values of the responses changed significantly while playing the game. Second, the ρ_min values of the responses changed linearly with the game's level of difficulty, and the rank correlation was found to be significant. Finally, the variation in the ρ_min value corresponded with the subjects' self-reported excitement scores. The HR and indexes of the autonomic nerve activities were investigated simultaneously by means of the HRV spectrum; however, no change or correlation with the game's difficulty level was found. The feasibility of using ρ_min values as the psychophysiological index of excitement was therefore verified.

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This investigation compares three wide-angle image projection techniques, “simple enlargement,” “video mosaicing” and “pseudo wide-angle images”, to find the most effective technique for producing an immersive feeling. We conduct an assessment of these techniques by a subjective evaluation using questionnaires. The results of the assessment are examined by Steel's test and factor analysis. According to all the results, the pseudo wide-angle images technique provides the most immersive feeling effects out of the three wide-angle image projection techniques. The most effective technique is useful for changing living rooms into human-scale immersive image theaters.

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This study aims to reveal the attributes of cognitive styles of the African and the East Asian cultures toward understanding cultural basis for perceptual process of product design aesthetics. The study took a cognitivist approach following the categorization task used by Park (2011) based on Chiu's method (1972). In this study, a web-based research was conducted with participants from Africa (n=35) and Japan (n=35) using natural and artificial objects represented in word triads as stimuli. Based on Nisbett's (analytic versus holistic thoughts) and Park's (attribute-oriented and relation-oriented thoughts) cognitive models, the study suggests that difference in cultural cognitive style can shape the perceptual process of aesthetics in product designs. The analysis of the test showed that the African participants showed more tendencies for analytic- and attribute-oriented thought than the Japanese respondents. Following this result, the study further seeks to delineate the characteristics of the perceptual process of product design aesthetics among African and Asian cultures. It is expected that this knowledge can foster innovative Kansei approach to design over cultural diversity.

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