To investigate how smell would affect the product experience, the present study chose the aromas of sweet orange and peppermint as the starting point of the product experience of the orange-shaped lego-like toy blocks. It was found that the aroma of sweet orange would lead to the highest degree of liking for the aroma, evoke images or expectations closer to the reality of the toy blocks, and relieve the fatigue of the participants after they directly smelled it. And the aroma of peppermint was found to moderate the tension caused by the blocks-building task and contribute to maintaining participants’ vigor. Notwithstanding, the aromas did not have noticeable effects on people’s degrees of liking for the toy blocks and their evaluations of the product due to the sensory dominance in the multisensory product experience. The potential roles of aromas in product experience remain to be investigated.

It has become a serious social concern that cases of accidental ingestion of pharmaceutical products are increasing. For example, elderly persons sometimes accidentally ingest the products together with the containers, and children may open pill containers and accidentally swallow the contents. We conducted this study to understand several contradictory conditions from expertise point of affective engineering and user-centered design and to obtain design indicator for overall solution, in order to solve these social problems related to pill container. In this paper, as for first step, we consider a method for evaluating child resistant features of pill containers that are difficult for children, but relatively easy for ordinary people, to open, especially in order to prevent children from accidentally swallowing pharmaceutical products. It consists of three experiments that are (a) container-opening test by children, (b) impression-evaluation test related to factor of safety, and (c) PTP-opening test by adults.

In some individuals, alpha waves appear in many regions of the brain, and this is considered abnormal electroencephalography (EEG). This phenomenon is known as diffuse alpha pattern. This study aims to extract and compare the features of the connectivity between the parts of the brain. The EEGs of healthy individuals and mental disorder patients with the diffuse alpha pattern were analyzed using wavelet-crosscorrelation analysis. Five epochs of 2 seconds were analyzed for each subject. Wavelet-crosscorrelation coefficients were calculated for frequencies in the alpha band for all epochs in each subject. The results showed that the WCC values were higher in the patients with diffuse alpha. The highest wavelet power spectra in the alpha band of the patients occurred at a lower frequency. Our results suggest that the connectivity strength along the sagittal and occipital orientations in the brain of the patients could be stronger than healthy individuals.

We developed a system that can objectively evaluate fatigue of long Visual Display Terminals, using both electrocardiogram data and self-reporting questionnaires. The objective was to identify the elements that contribute to stress within the organization. R-to-R interval (RRI) analysis of the electrocardiogram data allows the establishment of objective stress indices, and the rationalization of diagnosis. We therefore propose the introduction of biometric measurement to stress checking systems.

Kansei values are critical factors for manufacturing. Kawaii, an adjective that denotes such positive meanings as cute or lovable, has become even more critical as a kansei value. Therefore, we believe that kawaii will be a key factor in future product design. We focus on systematic study for kawaii products in terms of such physical attributes as color, shape, and material perception. In this research, we proposed a method to obtain effective attributes for kawaii cosmetic bottles. First, we collected evaluation results of the kawaii of cosmetic bottle images and constructed a model using deep learning. Then we modified the images focusing on particular attributes and evaluated them using our model to obtain effective attributes. Finally, we verified those attributes by experimentally evaluating the modified images. The novelty of this research is our new method to obtain effective attributes, which can be applied to other products and other kansei values.

Social, Emotional and Affective Factors [SEA] are critical to academic and career success [1]. Affective Education helps children better understand their feelings and respond to challenging situations. Although the importance of affect on learning and cognition is widely accepted in Education Research, the research so far has treated affect and cognition on two separate dimensions - loosely coupled. Recent findings, scattered across various disciplines, have shown their relationship to be more tightly coupled than what the previous theories have posited. Also, with the advent of online education, students are on their own to overcome the challenges that arise in the course of learning without the guidance of a human teacher. Therefore, it is imperative that machines detect and respond to affect effectively. In this paper, we propose a unified & scalable framework that brings together findings from multiple disciplines (Decision-making, Affective research, Chess studies, Education, Mindfulness studies), highlighting some of the challenges encountered in detecting/responding to affect and propose ways to address them. We then validate our framework through a Pilot Experiment (Chess puzzles) by examining the effectiveness of response strategies in mitigating the influence of incidental affect on performance. The results from the experiment, 80 chess amateurs solving chess puzzles, reveal that introducing time-delay between tasks & being aware of their state, can minimize the impact of incidental affect. We are hopeful that the learning from these experiments can be incorporated into cognitive-affective agents making learning - effective, sustainable and enjoyable.

Recently, regulations governing outdoor advertisements have been enacted in Kyoto, and elsewhere, based on landscape and cityscape planning considerations. Commonly, such regulations are based on desires to preserve historical townscapes and permit development of more attractive cities. In this study, we aimed to clarify conditions by which signboards can be made to harmonize with their surrounding landscape from the viewpoint of color, while maintaining a sufficient level “functionality” in locations where we normally live. The experiment was conducted using a personal computer monitor on which colored signboards were displayed against various backgrounds. The results are suggested that coloring patterns in which white is used as the background or lettering color are highly evaluated for “harmony”, and coloring patterns of black or chromatic color background × white lettering are likely to remain in the viewer’s “impression”.

Eye trackers have gradually been applied in research including in the Kansei Engineering field. Furthermore the semantic differential (SD) method can obtain users’ Kansei from different aspects through the semantics of different words. As for facade, because it contains too many components, the components’ effect on Kansei is difficult to analyze using only evaluation scores. In this paper, an eye tracker was utilized in the facade evaluation process to analyze whether evaluation words would have an effect on gaze. Subjects were divided into four groups, three of which were given different evaluation words, and the fourth group was not given any evaluation word. The differences in heat maps were quantified and compared. While using evaluation words in the Kansei evaluation experience, the heat maps were more similar than those without using any evaluation word, indicating that the logic of the evaluation task, the Kansei evaluation words, and individual preference all had an effect on gaze position.