This study aimed to identify the psychological variables that can mediate an influence of color focality on color preference in modern Japanese culture and to specify the pattern of the mediated influence. The potential mediators were 22 appraisal dimensions and the psychological processing fluency (PPF) of colors. We conducted two experiments with native Japanese speakers, which measured these variables. Data analyses showed that gracefulness is the only appraisal dimension that can mediate an effect of color focality on color preference. Specifically, focality negatively influenced the appraisal of gracefulness and gracefulness positively impacted preference. Although a U-shaped quadratic relationship exists between focality and PPF, no relationship was found between PPF and preference. Therefore, PPF’s role as a mediator is not supported. Our literature survey suggests that the focality-gracefulness-preference relationship may be caused by the “noisy color phenomenon,” which is a cultural phenomenon existing in many color-using areas in modern Japan.

This study aims to find how space discrepancy and latency affect the implicit and explicit sense of agency (SoA) with discrete and continuous operations, and whether these two factors have an interaction effect. In Experiment 1, for discrete operations, participants were asked to press a button to make a ball move. In Experiment 2, for continuous operations, participants were required to copy four shapes shown on the screen. Space discrepancy and latency were set in both experiments. Subjective scores of the SoA are used to measure the explicit SoA. The intentional binding and relative distance between the shape shown and participants’ drawing are used to measure the implicit SoA, respectively. From the experimental results, we learn how latency and space discrepancy affect the SoA and these two factors have an interaction effect. The SoA has the same manner in discrete and continuous operations according to the explicit results.

Emotion is one of the predetermined aspects that lead to non-compliance behaviour by a user in the Information Security (IS) domain. Four prominent emotions have been recognized in IS, which are fear, stress, trust, and rage. In this study, fear will be highlighted as the scope to explain fear in IS through design concept. This paper discusses how to characterize fear as stimuli for user emotional assessment in IS through the design concept of information security dialog user interface design (UID). Recent research made by other researchers shows that too low and too high levels of fear lead to user reluctance and resistance behaviour. Thus, it is essential to conduct a study to suggest methodology and procedural details in measuring fear and propose the relationship between the level of fear and user compliance behaviour toward IS procedures and policies. This study adopted part of Kansei Engineering, and KJ Method in measuring fear towards IS dialog box UID as the artefact. This study characterizes fear emotion in the IS domain based on users’ compliance response towards the artefacts. Findings from this study will give a new perspective on emotion, particularly for fear toward design in the IS domain and serve as the foundation of emotion in the IS field concerning Kansei and Affective Sciences.

This paper proposes a method of estimating a group’s mood based on the number of synchronicities of heart rate peaks in the group as a means to support positive tourism experiences. This study constructed a prototype system with a smartwatch and a smartphone and conducted a field experiment for 12 groups at nine points of interest in Kyoto City, Japan. The results of the investigation showed that the proposed method could estimate a group’s mood from the relationships between the psychometric evaluation of groups and their synchronized heart rate peaks.

We examined the degree to which relaxation was induced by the presentation of a comfortable thermal foot stimulation paired with other sensory stimuli. We presented a movie of an underwater scene, classical music, light blue illumination, vibrations to the trunk, and grapefruit odor as relaxing stimuli in combination with thermal stimulation, and measured physiological responses of the autonomic nervous system (electrocardiogram, respiration, fingertip pulse wave, peripheral blood flow, and sweating). All stimulus combinations induced parasympathetic activation compared with an initial control. In particular, the presentation of an odor with thermal stimulation elicited a remarkable degree of parasympathetic activation. We verified differences in the latency and duration of physiological responses depending on the stimuli combination. However, subjective relaxation was not confirmed, and parasympathetic activation for combined stimuli did not remarkably differ from that for thermal stimulation alone. These results indicate that thermal stimulation has a powerful effect on relaxation induction.

This study focuses on the public service facility (men’s toilet, women’s toilet, multipurpose toilet, baby room, kids’ toilet) zone arrangement in the shopping malls. The purpose is to find out the problem between the arrangement of public service facilities and the customer needs that can be fed back to the planning of public service facilities in shopping malls. In this study, we analyzed the function distribution for customers with children and customer behaviors by field survey in Ario-kameari, Aeonmall-hinode and LaLaport-tachikawa tachihi to make the current situation clear. And based on the results of quantitative analysis on the equipments of the service facilities and the user behavior observation, we conducted interview investigation and found out the correlation between the distribution of facilities, equipments and user needs. And finally, it provides several directions for further improvement of public service facilities for customers with children in shopping malls.

In food photography, factors like the camera angle, background, lighting, light color, and decorative elements are commonly manipulated to motivate consumption through the impression of deliciousness. Studies have demonstrated these factors’ relevance on several subjects related to food perception. Nevertheless, the effect that these factors might have on the impression of deliciousness remains unclear. Therefore, to comprehend visual deliciousness perception, this study tested food images where each factor was manipulated independently and tested the interactions between the factors. The results concluded that although the light color, number of decorative elements, and the type of decorative elements individually affected the impression of deliciousness, the interaction between these three factors did not have any effect. However, interactions between the light color and type of decorative elements; and the number and type of elements affected the impression of deliciousness, evidencing that the manipulation of such factors partially modulates the impression of deliciousness.