Mode (major/minor) and tempo are key features shaping emotional responses in Western music, such as classical music loved worldwide. This study examined their independent and combined effects using “Sister Pieces,” systematically modified classical compositions designed to isolate the pure effects of mode and tempo by preserving melody and other elements while varying only these two. Nineteen participants rated 16 stimuli across 23 emotional descriptors. Multiple regression analysis reproduced established associations-mode with valence (e.g., brightness), tempo with arousal (e.g., activeness)-and also revealed cross-dimensional effects: mode influenced arousal, and tempo affected valence. Both dimensions shaped several emotions and did not necessarily align with either axis, consistent with the circular structure of Russell’s valence-arousal model. These findings highlight the utility of Sister Pieces for isolating musical effects with high precision. This approach offers a structured method for psychological and neuroscientific research on affective responses to music, including cross-cultural comparisons.

Sense of agency refers to the perception that one is the initiator of an action. The impact of prediction error on sense of agency has not been thoroughly explored. Sense of agency in machine operation is influenced by noise; thus, uncertainty cannot be overlooked. Our study aimed to elucidate the effects of prediction error and uncertainty on sense of agency. Previous study has shown that prediction error and uncertainty interact to influence the sense of agency. However, the interaction has not been examined in continuous operations. In the steering task, prediction error was manipulated through expected delays, and prediction uncertainty was altered by the variance in delays. Our results revealed an interaction between prediction error and uncertainty. Thus, sense of agency is preserved with large uncertainty when facing large prediction errors. This finding suggests that precision-weighted prediction errors significantly affect sense of agency.

Healthcare information technology (IT) is expected to improve the cost-efficiency of national healthcare. Meanwhile, cross-border M&A are increasingly active in the IT field. In this context, this study addressed the country-of-origin (COO) and COO fit between acquiring and acquired firms regarding cross-border acquisition (CBA) of IT vendors. A unified theory of acceptance and use of technology was applied for psychological assessment. Through two studies based on 308 samples, the data showed significant associations of tech-related COO with individuals’ acceptance of healthcare IT. The results implied CBA is a psychological risk driver in healthcare IT development, suggesting that medical practitioners and policymakers should consider users’ psychological dimension, while they tend to focus on the medical effects. Few researchers have reported on the relationships between CBA and the use of healthcare IT from a psychological approach. Thus, this research is relevant to the practical, social, and theoretical fields.

This study aimed to determine the EOG interface that can be used for ALS, which can be used without preparation. Thus, eye movement detection was proposed using the RMS of the active threshold (AT) and K-NN methods. The AT method is dynamically performed using the RMS. In this study the combined use of both methods was described. Experiments on waveform detection accuracy were conducted on 19 healthy subjects between the ages of 20 and 29 years. The hit rate of the proposed method was 94%, and the false alarm rate was 9%. Next, we calculated the information transfer rate (ITR), a popular evaluation index for BCI. Using the proposed method, the ITR was bits/min. A P300 Speller is one of the bio-signal interfaces, that its ITR is 11 bits/min. Therefore, the ITR of the proposed method was higher than that of other bio-signal interfaces. Furthermore, the proposed method has shown great application potential as an interface.

This study investigated the influence of cultural environmental scents on individual perceptions, and constructed professional aromatic proficiency test for the Chinese population. Familiarity and intensity of aroma are the human perception metrics that would influence the hedonic dimensions. Experiment 1 explored both cultural and gender dimensions, where 30 participants rated both Chinese and Western aromas on their perceived familiarity and intensity of the aromas. The findings revealed a preference for culturally familiar and low-intensity aromas, with a different perception on a common Western aroma scale. Both genders were found to favor Chinese aromas that are perceived to be feminine. Experiment 2 tested the differences in aroma identification among 32 participants, which highlighted a gap between the perceived and actual aromatic proficiency. The findings contributed to the understanding of aroma perception in China, offering valuable insights for developing culturally dependent aroma marketing strategies targeted at the younger Chinese consumers.

We investigated event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited by chord changes using a custom-built electroencephalography-based decoding system. An oddball paradigm was employed to examine how harmonic structures influence auditory deviance detection, extending the previous work on pure tones. To quantify the neural responses, we used a discriminant score based on linear discriminant analysis, offering an objective measure of response strength. Experiments with healthy adults revealed that pitch changes in minor chords, particularly from lower to higher ranges, elicit the strongest ERP responses, suggesting a saliency effect of pitch height. Mode changes (e.g., major to minor) showed greater variability, possibly because of individual differences in perception and musical background. Importantly, compared to single tones, chords engage higher-level auditory processing, owing to their harmonic complexity. This study demonstrates the utility of ERP-based measures for investigating neural responses to structured auditory stimuli and highlights how harmonic features contribute to attentional modulation in music perception.

During the pandemic, UX methods employed in hardware design were restricted or postponed. The typical controlled UX studies were out of reach, as access to users and their exposure to products was restricted. This offered an opportunity in the design of computer mice, found to be in higher demand for working from home. This work describes the development of an adapted method for gathering UX, driven by Kansei Engineering (KE), properly supported by a purposely designed online platform to guide, provide tasks and survey users, KESo. The hypothesis is that remote UX methods allow collecting user feedback with no major loss of subjective data providing similar insights as traditional methods. The emerging idea is that these methods can and will remain useful to support product design. Remote UX can also be autonomous, reducing resources required, thus promising scaling participation, and extending capabilities of gathering emotional responses by adopting new technologies.

This study investigates Japanese consumers’ comprehension of nutrition labeling and explores the potential of simplified front-of-pack (FOP) designs informed by behavioral economics and universal design. Using secondary data from a national survey (n = 5,758), we examined consumers’ understanding of carbohydrate composition, daily energy percentages, and sodium chloride equivalents. Results revealed substantial difficulties: only 23-24% correctly identified carbohydrate content, 39.9% understood daily energy percentages, and 20% recognized sodium chloride equivalents, with accuracy falling to 7.1% among individuals with hypertension. These difficulties were particularly pronounced among older adults and those with lower levels of education, highlighting inequities in accessibility. To complement these findings, we conducted a small-scale pilot eye-tracking experiment. Although preliminary, the experiment showed that under time constraints participants frequently skipped or overlooked key nutrition information, providing behavioral evidence that supports the survey results. Together, the dual approach of statistical and experimental evidence underscores the structural limitations of current labeling systems and demonstrates the need for more intuitive formats. We propose that battery-style FOP indicators could offer a promising solution by visually conveying nutrient sufficiency or excess, thereby supporting healthier food choices across diverse consumer groups in Japan.

In marketing optimization, consumer behavior research continues to advance while practical theories remain underdeveloped. This study addresses this gap by proposing an advertising optimization system integrating Regulatory Focus Theory with the Consumer Style Inventory (CSI) to generate personalized advertisements. The system classifies consumers based on purchasing characteristics and creates tailored advertising statements optimized through machine learning. We conducted experiments in which participants interacted with the system in a virtual shopping environment. Results indicate that the proposed system successfully categorizes consumers according to their purchasing characteristics and generates effective advertisements that increase selection rates. Specifically, optimization reached approximately 75% effectiveness by the sixth interaction. Our findings suggest that personalized advertisement generation incorporating both regulatory focus and consumer style classification effectively promotes purchasing motivation. This research contributes to the practical application of theoretical consumer behavior models in real-world marketing scenarios.

This study proposes a novel method to enhance empathy toward partner’s emotions using mechanical vibration stimuli applied to the upper body. Such stimuli, designed to increase physiological arousal, have been shown to intensify emotional responses during multimedia experiences. Here, we investigated whether upper-body vibration can also influence empathy when the partner’s emotional cues are present. In the experiment, participants observed an experimenter playing a computer game, while receiving vibration stimuli synchronized with the experimenter’s vocal reactions-such as surprise and excitement-triggered by a footswitch. Fifteen participants experienced two conditions: one with vibration stimuli in synch with the experimenter’s emotional reactions, and one without. Post-experiment questionnaire revealed that vibration stimuli significantly increased participants’ reported empathy, excitement, and tension. These findings suggest that vibration, when paired with emotional vocal cues, can amplify empathy for others’ emotions, offering a novel approach for designing interactive content that fosters richer emotional communication among users.

Japanese consumers are familiar with chicken karaage (Japanese-style fried chicken) and its importance in the market has been increasing. The current study was to clarify the psychological association between perceived food attributes of chicken karaage among Japanese consumers and their purchase intention utilizing the extended Mehrabian-Russell model: food properties of chicken karaage lead to purchase intentions via emotional and cognitive reactions. Study 1 explored the psychological factors leading to purchase intentions toward purchasing chicken karaage with stepwise and hierarchical regression analyses and revealed that sensory appeal elicited a rewarding effect, which led to purchase intentions, and that chicken karaage itself works as a mood enhancer. Study 2 indicated that the model presented above remained the same both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, we clarified the psychological model revealing consumers’ evaluations of chicken karaage and psychological reactions leading to their purchase intentions and demonstrated their stability in emergency situations.

Launching new internal businesses is a common measure for company sustainment. According to the Job Demands-Resources model, the success of a business is founded upon the enhancement of work engagement. We explored factors related to work engagement of new and existing employees, aiming to identify the factors related to promoting new internal businesses. The 600 participants responded to an online survey exploring individual qualities and the state of businesses within a company. Two participant groups were formed: For one, regression analyses were conducted (dependent variable: work engagement; independent variables: all other variables). For the other, a MANOVA was conducted (independent variable: type of job; dependent variables: all other variables). These models revealed that individual adaptability and the organizational big-picture were significant only for new-business employees. There were significant differences in the big-picture by job type. By managing these factors, companies could promote new internal businesses and survive in competitive environments.

This study proposed an expectations-violations-explanations (EVE’)-theory-based method for estimating “aesthetic preferences” for closed-curve shapes, using the entropy of curvature. We conducted sensory evaluation experiments using two types of shapes: meaningless (connected random Bézier curves) and meaningful (animal silhouettes). The results showed a strong correlation (R ²>0.5) between the estimated values of aesthetic preferences by the proposed method and the sensory evaluation values. Furthermore, we confirmed that the correlation was slightly weaker for meaningful shapes because the participants evaluated the preference for the meaning of the shape itself. Additionally, the parameter for weighting the “explanation” in the EVE’ model was larger for meaningless shapes, suggesting that “semantic understanding” plays a more dominant role in the evaluation of meaningless shapes.