Prior expectation affects posterior experience and emotions. This psychological effect is called expectation effect. Two different patterns of expectation effect, contrast and assimilation, were observed. In this talk, I proposed a mathematical model of the expectation effect that explains the conditions of contrast and assimilation[1]. I hypothesized that perceived variable is estimated using a Bayes’ inference of prior prediction and likelihood based on sensory stimuli. I formalized the expectation effect as a function of three factors: expectation error, prediction uncertainty, and external noise. Both the results of the computer simulation using the model and the experiment using Size-weight illusion (SWI) revealed that 1) the pattern of expectation effect shifted from assimilation to contrast as the prediction error increased, 2) uncertainty decreased the extent of the expectation effect, 3) and external noise increased the assimilation. Furthermore, I discussed the meanings of expectation effect from an ecological point of view.

We will have a look into an existing babysitting co-operative and discuss the effectiveness of nudge theory in behavioural economics. In the co-op, parents are exchanging coupons as a currency and babysitting their own children with each other. However, at some point, the co-op faced with severe supply-demand imbalance of coupons and went into “depression”. We will offer a solution to adjust the imbalance by using mobile application with applying six major techniques of the nudge theory to its design.

In the area of community-based natural resource management, the increasing difficulty of maintaining community groups and for them to keep carrying out their activities is a serious challenge. In order to search for a way to solve this situation, this study aims at describing the key structural and philosophical points of an effective communication space that cultivates a supportive network among the community groups, and amongst the individual members of the groups. The name of the focused communication platform is the Iikawa and Iikawa-dukuri Workshop. This is a long lasting annual award selection workshop event where the participants are encouraged through gaining confidence and feeling rewarded for their work caring for their local rivers. Through document analysis and in-field research, this study shows that there is a well-designed spatial forum with an open and creative structure, and a future-oriented philosophy that maintains moral safety in the communication during the workshop.

The sense of agency (SoA) is an important Kansei quality in interactive design. It refers to the feeling that one is in control of his/her actions and, through them, of events in the outside world. Our living world consists of two dimensions: space and time. One perceives and operates objects in time and space. Thus, time and space are essential factors in interaction design. The objective of this study is to find how congruency of space discrepancy and latency affect the SoA while interacting an object through an interface and whether they have interaction effect. We conducted an experiment with participants to compare between varied space discrepancy and latency with respect to SoA. We used intentional binding and questionnaire to measure both implicit and explicit SoA, respectively. The result showed that both latency and congruency of space discrepancy affect the explicit part of sense of agency, while only latency affects the implicit part of sense of agency. Interaction effect was observed between latency and congruency of space discrepancy only in the explicit part of SoA. The result provided an explanation to how these two factors affect SoA. Furthermore, we proposed a standardization method for the result of intentional binding supporting that latency has similar effect on the explicit and the implicit part of SoA. That is, as latency increases, the SoA decreases.

The purpose of our study was to determine the electrooculography (EOG) interface that can be used for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients that can use without preparation. We proposed eye movement detection using Root Mean Square the active threshold (AT method) and k-nearest neighbor (k-NN) methods. The AT method is the threshold method that is dynamically calculated using the root mean square. This report describes the combined use of both methods. We conducted experiments on the waveform detection accuracy for 19 healthy subjects between the ages of 20 and 29 years. The hit rate for the proposed method was 94%, and the FA rate was 9%. Next, we calculated the information transfer rate (ITR), a popular evaluation index in for the brain-computer interface. (BCI). The minimum ITR using the proposed method was 19.02[bits/min]. The ITR of the P300 speller a BCI tool, was 16.4[bits/min]. The ITR of the proposed method was higher than that using the P300 speller. Therefore, it can be said that the proposed method has usefulness as an interface.

Conversational virtual assistants have exploded in popularity in recent years. Developers have been working to create personality in virtual assistants, so that users treat them more than mere automation tools. Among other factors, motivation is considered playing an important role. However, previous researches focused mainly on extrinsic motivation, and ignored the fact that intrinsically motivated engagement cultivates better relationship of reliance. Intrinsic motivation is derived from inner urge to seek enjoyment in an action itself, while extrinsic motivation is oriented at consequences and rewards. In context of virtual assistant interaction, motivation is formed based on the user’s prior expectation: whether the assistant can cope with his/her intention. When the expectation is contradicted, the user is subjected with disruption and is bounced back to learning process about the assistant’s attributes. Related works in expectation effect found that the surprising amplitude of disruption is function of perception uncertainty and prediction error. The current research investigated effects of expectation towards the assistant’s capability and uncertainty during perception on intrinsic motivation. We conducted laboratory environment experiments using Amazon Echo smart speakers and extracted subjective assessment as well as used free choice paradigm as objective measurement. The result showed a significant trend that small uncertainty encouraged more intrinsically motivated interaction while large uncertainty motivated the participant to interact in order to resolve uncertainty. Neither uncertainty nor expectation showed main effect on subjective assessment on intrinsic motivation. Our findings suggest that trading consistency for performance is a risky strategy in designing virtual personality.

In general, it is well known that the image of a brand will be better or worse with one employee's actions. Therefore, it is the inner branding that the employee also performs to sufficiently understand the brand. In order to succeed in branding, inner branding is becoming indispensable as with branding for customers. Generally, regardless of inner or outer branding, no research on quantitative evaluation of branding is found. Under such circumstances, this paper aims at quantitative evaluation of inner branding and attempts to derive its evaluation items. Then we propose quantitative evaluation method of inner branding using them.

Characteristics of luxury fashion brands were quantitatively derived from regular and selling prices extracted from online retail stores specialized in luxury fashion products. This study assumes that brands definitively determine regular prices based on marketing; however, online retail stores dynamically adjust selling prices considering the balance between consumer demand and producer supply. Regular price distributions indicated the prestige of 34 luxury fashion brands, with traditional French and Italian brands appearing in a higher rank. Two emerging luxury brands also had a higher social status. This result suggests that the mobility of creative talents allows emerging brands to inherit the brand equity of traditional and prestigious brands. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) suggests that 34 luxury fashion brands were segregated in the market, even price distributions overlap each other. Two-way ANOVA for brand groups comprised of main and diffusion lines confirmed the difference between lines, and the difference between regular and selling prices. This paper classified these brand groups forming diffusion lines into five types, based on brand operations and the price relationship between main and diffusion lines.

In this paper, we propose an effective classification method for the silhouettes of various kinds of clothes. There are two approaches to analyzing clothes. The first method focuses on the basic elements of a garment’s design, from the viewpoint of its creator. The second method features detailed categories with respect to the garment made. The silhouette of a garment is one of the most important pieces of information in fashion design trends. Here, we focused on classifying silhouettes that lead to the creation of trends, rather than classifying items made of clothing. This classification makes it possible to create a data set of silhouettes that can be used to multi-class classifications in a deep neural network.

This study aims to make an individualized A-line dress from three dimensional (3D) body data. Shapes of a body and an A-line dress which was fit on the body were obtained by 3D scanning. From the scanned 3D data, cross-sectional dimensions of regular intervals were obtained. Then, ratios of the maximum distance of front, back and width on transverse planes from the origin between the body and the dress were obtained as multiplication factors. A target body was deformed using the multiplication factors to construct a new dress model. Employing the proposed method, a 3D dress model was made. Using the computerized 3D draping method, the pattern was obtained and the dress was made. It was fitted on the target body while preserving the original shape dress. This method will help to make an individualized dress using 3D scan body data.

The authors have investigated the influence of interaction with product information on selection results in product purchase. In the previous study, the authors investigated cases the participants selected watches themselves to wear, however in this study we conduct similar investigation on decision making when purchasing gifts. As a result of comparing with the previous study, even when purchasing gifts, it was found that the selection result varies depending on the interaction of product information. Next, we investigated on gender differences. As a result, we found that the selection result was more likely to change for females than males by interaction with product information. Finally, we compared the price variance of selected products with the previous study. As a result, males showed that prices are set to a certain extent when purchasing their own, whereas there are variations in the budget for gifts. On the other hand, females do not change the budget for gifts, however in the case of their own, the price range tends to vary.

Switch sounds are not always pleasant for passive listeners although they are comfortable for operators to confirm the completion of their operations. An example is how the sounds of keyboard typing of other passengers are deemed noisy in a railway train. This difference in affective evaluation may be due to the attitudes of listeners: the operator is in an active listening attitude with tactile feedback from the pushed switch whereas a usual listener is in passive listening attitude. To separate the effects of tactile information and listening attitudes, we defined an active listener as one in an active listening attitude but without tactile feedback. To examine these effects on affective evaluation of switch sounds, a psychoacoustical experiment was carried out using 15 switches. The sound quality of each switch sound was evaluated by the semantic differential (SD) method using 26 adjective pairs. Eighty-one subjects participated in the experiment as one of the roles of operator, active listener, and passive listener. The results were analyzed using factor analysis; the three factors of activity (brightness), evaluation (aesthetic state), and potency (volume) were extracted. The comparisons of these factor scores among the three roles revealed the following two points. First, the effects of tactile information seem different depending on the switches used. Second, a passive listening attitude results in the negative evaluation of sound: less active, more uncomfortable, and noisier. This finding supports the abovementioned scenario in a train.

Usefulness of subjective sleep quality assessment by a questionnaire (OSA-MA sleep inventory) was examined in ten track drivers (age, 23-62 yr) in reference to the objective measure by cyclic variation of heart rate (CVHR) in electrocardiogram (ECG) during sleep. Total CVHR suggesting moderate-to-severe sleep apnea (average >15 cycles/h) was observed only in one subject and frequent CVHR in a limited time was detected in the same subject and two other subjects. Subjective sleep quality assessed less sleepiness on rising, good initiation and maintenance of sleep, less frequency of dreaming, refreshing feeling, and subjective sleep length as factors 1-5, respectively. The subject with high total CVHR showed factor scores <-1 SD for factors 1, 2, and 3 and reported subjective sleepiness during driving. In the two subjects with frequent CVHR in limited time, one showed factor score <-1 SD for factors 3 and 5, while the other subject did not show score <-1 SD for any of the factors. Although this is preliminary study in a small sample size, it suggests the possible associations between the subjective assessment of sleep quality and the objective measure of CVHR.

This study aims to investigate the effect of time passage on kansei evaluation, i.e. whether the results may change as the user interact with the product for a longer time compared against his/her first impression. Eight on-ear headsets covering three levels of ear pad material, two levels of headset weight, and two levels of clamping force were considered. Each of the 30 participants was asked to evaluate each of the eight headsets with 18 bipolar kansei keywords related to wearing comfort right after it was put on from behind by the test giver, so as to exclude the influence of visual stimuli. After experiencing the headset for 15 minutes without auditory input, the same evaluation was performed as the headset remained on the participant’s ears. Results indicate that the representative semantic concepts of wearing comfort changed over time, so did the corresponding design parameters. More specifically, users tend to underestimate the value of more breathable ear pad materials and the higher stability contributed by the stronger clamping force, unless they can experience on-ear headsets for a considerable time.

The five-point scale is a method of expressing assessments that are fundamentally continuous in nature as five discrete points. Though quantitative data is a necessity for statistical analysis, it is possible that this does not entirely accurately reflect the feelings of those surveyed. We considered that in order to avoid that possibility, it may be possible to substitute fundamentally unquantifiable measurements, such as emotional assessment, with more quantifiable ones as a method of more intuitively and quantifiably measuring feelings. To that end, we wondered if it might be possible to use the sensors in people’s smartphones as a ubiquitous and always close-at-hand device that is capable of making quantitative measurements. In this research, we focus on the sensors with which smartphones are equipped, proposing, and investigating the effectiveness of, the measurement and numerical analysis of the force with which a device is shaken as a more direct means of conducting emotional assessment and that succeeded.

The present study evaluated the burden on the lower back during the transferring motion that is commonly performed in nursing, and evaluated the association of this burden with the knee flexion angle. The aim of the present study was to verify the knee flexion angle at which the vertically upward force was maximized while the subject was performing the hoisting motion to move an object (simulating a patient). The mean maximal forces applied vertically upward to the object were significantly greater when the subject had knee flexion angles of 60° and 80° compared with a knee flexion angle of 40°. However, the mean maximal force applied vertically upward to the object with a knee flexion angle of 80° did not significantly differ from that with a knee flexion angle of 60°. This suggests that a flexion angle of the knee joint of 60° minimizes the burden on the lower back, assuming that the effect of the upper body is excluded.

Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) has been used for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients with severe communication difficulties. We planned a brief educational course for students in multiple healthcare disciplines. In 2018 we held 2 sessions more than 5 months apart. We set out to test a preliminary hypothesis that there would be a difference between novice students and an experienced group of students who had already attended the session once, especially in terms of their ease in managing the AAC. We compared data from the second training session between 6 students (experienced group) who had attended the same session twice in March and August, and 6 new students (novice group) who had never experienced AAC before August. We measured the number of letters obtained by each AAC method and the participants’ perceived burden before/after using AAC evaluated by a visual analog scale (VAS). We also asked the participants to write comments after using AAC. We compared the number of letters and the subjective burden between the two groups. Free-text comments were processed by text-mining software (KH Coder®). The burden of the Flick type of communication board was lower for the experienced group (p=0.034). Comparison of Difficulty/Ease of the two groups with KH Coder® suggested less difficulty in the experienced group (p=0.002). Text-mining of the free comments suggested some difference on Difficulty/Ease between the 2 groups with and without the experience of the educational course.

This survey aimed to evaluate the subjective meaningfulness of digitization using electronic medical records among Japanese nurses at two hospitals. This was based on a suggestion by students from the Catholic University of Applied Sciences in Freiburg, Germany. Data for this cross-sectional, exploratory survey were collected using an anonymous paper-based questionnaire. Participants were clinical nurses aged ≤60 years working in intensive care units or acute wards at Mie University Hospital and Kinan Hospital. After research ethics committee approval, eligible participants received an explanation about the study and were invited to complete the questionnaire. Responses were retrieved in November 2018, and checked and translated into English. Free-text comments were processed using text-mining software (KH Corder®). Seventy-one valid responses were retrieved. The valid response rate was 77% at Mie University Hospital and 84% at Kinan Hospital. Participants showed similar and positive perceptions of digitization (i.e., “To me digitization in my daily work is a good fit”). The selection of reasons for this perception showed similar patterns, although “Physical relief,” was more commonly selected at Mie University Hospital than Kinan Hospital (p=0.001). Participants from the two hospitals also differed in terms of “Other reasons” and corresponding free-text comments. No nurses from Kinan Hospital provided comments, but over one-third of Mie University Hospital participants commented. The relationship analysis of the comments placed “information” at the center, surrounded by “share” and “easy.” This survey showed most nurses perceived positive meaningfulness of digitization in clinical nursing. However, there may be some situation-based differences in meaningfulness.

We have been developing an EEG-based cognitive brain-machine interface (BMI) system, Neurocommunicator® to support patients with severe motor deficits in communication. This system uses an event-related potential (ERP) to decode the message (pictogram) that users want to convey. In addition to the communication aid, it would be expected for the Neurocommunicator to improve the QOL of the users in a variety of daily-life situations. In this study, we focused on the brain activity that reflected the decision-making process of customers. We used the virtual shopping task as a model of daily shopping, in which a variety of product images were used as visual stimuli for the sequential delayed matching-to-sample paradigm. We recorded EEG data from 12 normal subjects and examined the ERPs in two conditions; the subject selected one (target) out of 8 products (nontargets) either “to BUY” (positive condition) or “NOT to BUY” (negative condition). We observed the strong ERPs not only to the target “to BUY” but also to the target “NOT to BUY” compared to the nontarget. The magnitude of the response and the decoding accuracy of the former were, however, greater than the latter. These results suggest that the ERP to a product is enhanced by the intention to buy it, and that the ERP- based Neurocommunicator has potential to become a “body-free” shopping tool for patients with severe motor deficits as well as a real-time neuromarketing/neuroconsulting tool for any person.

We studied a motor-imagery brain-computer interface (MI-BCI). An MI-BCI is an interface that allows a computer to be operated by changes in brain activity that occurs when the operator imagines moving a body part. For example, with MI-BCI it is possible to assign left-hand motor-imagery to power an ON/OFF command. One of the problems with MI-BCI is its low performance, especially since MI-BCI has few commands. We aimed to improve the performance of MI-BCI by adding to the number of commands. Currently, MI-BCI has four commands based on “left hand,” “right hand,” “legs,” and “tongue” motor imagery. Therefore, we attempted to add to the number of MI-BCI commands by classifying eight kinds of brain motor-imagery activity: “no imagery,” “left hand,” “right hand,” “legs,” “both hands,” “left hand + legs,” “right hand + legs,” and “both hands + legs.” Motor imagery that involves multiple body parts, for example, “both hands,” is referred to as a multi-mental task. Multi-mental tasks involve a combination of simultaneous motor imagery, for example including the left and right hands and the legs. This makes it possible to increase the number of commands to 2^N (where N is the number of body parts). Eighteen healthy males in their twenties participated in this study. The use of multi-mental tasks enabled us to improve MI-BCI performance in two out of three subjects. Multi-mental tasks can be used to add choice to MI tasks. Performance improvements using an MI-BCI were made possible by choosing MI tasks associated with high accuracy.

This paper gives some considerations on a transformation matrix of the factor loading matrixes obtained through factor analysis often used in affective engineering. A transformation matrix transforms a factor loading matrix to another, and vice versa. It represents the relationship of two sets of factors. This paper tries to clarify accuracy and interpretation of the transformation matrix. Accuracy is theoretically explained. Interpretation is demonstrated by using an example.

The Orthopedic surgery differs from its counterpart surgery, such as laparoscopic and laparotomy, because of a large variety of surgical techniques. Furthermore, the procedures are complicated, and many types of equipment’s have been using in the Orthopedic surgery. So, nurses who deliver surgical instruments to surgeon are supposed to be forced to incur a heavy burden. In our previous work, the navigation system for assisting operating room nurse in Orthopedic surgery - Unicompartmental knee arthroplasty (UKA)- was proposed, and we achieved satisfactory accuracy for operation and out-of-operation phase detection. In this work, we propose method for improvement of recognizing Orthopaedics procedures from video images of UKA and TKA (Total knee arthroplasty) by deep neural network. Firstly, we construct the recognition model and then evaluate the recognition of procedures using convolutional neural network, and finally investigated the role of deep and densely connected neural nets for improving the recognition accuracy. The outcome confirmed the improved recognition rate with deep and dense layers, however, further improvement is yet to discover in future.

We propose a system to retrieve appropriate images from a database for a given Japanese sound symbolic word (SSW) expressing texture. We use some features of images calculated from gray-level co-occurrence matrices (GLCM). Using GLCMs and SSWs contribute reduction of calculation cost and easy operation of the system.

Intelligent space is where people may easily interact with computers and robots, changing the environmental conditions based on users’ needs to create more comfortable and satisfying surroundings. In our proposed system, we would integrate an intelligent space with a robot that would act as an active part of the environment. The system is illustrated in a few caregiver scenarios, showing the actions of a robot. The skills of a robot are explained, presenting the advantages and contributions of the system.

Various measures are being used to select the best font for the content. However, the degree of similarity calculated using different measures is different for the same font. In this research, we propose a font comparison system considering different similarity comparison methods by ranking similarities for each font. For measuring similarity, we use MSE, PSNR, SSIM, and MSSSIM for image quality assessment, as well as Euclidean distance and cosine similarity in t-SNE for dimensionality reduction. Relative relations among fonts are obtained by averaging similarity rankings of different similarity comparison methods.

Food images contain several visual elements, such as lightning, color, shapes, shadows, etc. While the influence of the mentioned above have been well studied, the influence of shadows on “Deliciousness” impression of food remains unexplored. Thus, this study investigated how does the strength of the cast shadow and the angle of the light source influence deliciousness perception. There were 38 participants which evaluated 4 experimental conditions regarding the strength of the cast shadow, and 3 experimental conditions regarding the angle of the light source. A total of 12 images were evaluated with the conditions described. In each condition, the participants rated how delicious they perceived the visual stimuli. The results showed that the cast shadows acts as a diminisher of the light, and that high lightning angles images rated better than the other light angle conditions when the presence of shadows is null or close to null.

According to the self-determination theory, we considered the disappearance of autonomy of product operation result in the decrease in sense of fulfillment of product use. The purpose of this study was to develop a mathematical model that explained the effect of sense of agency (SoA) on sense of fulfillment. For this purpose, we integrated the idea of judgment of agency (JoA), flow theory, and attribution theory. We formulated the effect of the locus of causality on skill and challenge using attribution theory. Self- determination theory explains the relationship between increased sense of fulfillment and autonomy needs that are fulfilled. The model explains the relationship in self-determination theory where sense of fulfillment increases when judgement of agency is internal. We conducted an experiment using a game task with different types of assistance to verify the hypothesis. Flow score was used as an indicator of sense of fulfillment between two assistance methods in which judgement of agency was changed according to ease of recognition of assistance. We assumed that the hard-to-recognize assistance made judgement of agency internal. As a result of the experiment on three subjects, the flow scores were high with the hard-to-recognize assistance. Therefore, the experimental result supported the hypothesis.

Novelty is an important factor of creativity in product design. Acceptance of novelty, however, depends on one’s emotions. Raymond Loewy, a pioneer of industrial design, defined a broader term between attraction of novelty and fear of the unknown MAYA (Most advanced, yet acceptable), which is important for new designs that are widely accepted in society. Yanagisawa et al. (2019) developed a mathematical model of emotion dimensions associated with novelty such as arousal (surprise) and valence (positivity and negativity). The model formalized arousal as Bayesian information gain and valence as a function of arousal based on Berlyne’s arousal potential theory. On the one hand, people get used to novelty by repeated exposure. This so-called desensitization to novelty is an important factor to consider in the design of long-term products experience. In this paper, we proposed a mathematical model of desensitization to novelty based on the emotion dimension model. We formalized the desensitization as a decrement of information gained from a novel event through Bayesian update. We derived the information gained from repeated exposure of a novel stimulus as a function of three parameters: initial prediction error, initial uncertainty and noise of sensory stimulus. With the proposed model, we found an interaction effect of initial prediction error and initial uncertainty on desensitization (decrement of information gain). Furthermore, we demonstrated that a range of positive emotions on prediction errors shifted towards more novel by repeated novelty exposure. The experimental results of previous studies supported this simulation results.

In this paper, we report the experimental result of examining the difference of feeling of human and machine to the similarity of melody. First of all, original melodies are divided into 4 groups for each work, and fake melodies similar to original ones are generated by Deep Convolutional Generative Adversarial Net (DCGAN). At that time, the discriminator of each GAN is learned so as to be able to evaluate the similarity with the work which is not learned. We ask ten subjects to evaluate impressions for melodies generated GANs, and calculate the similarity between melodies. We compare the similarity evaluation by human and that by machine.

Non-Linguistic Utterances (NLUs) present a potentially useful alternative communication channel between humans and machines. NLUs are potentially cheaper, and easier to implement, and not limited to the constraints of natural language and therefore may be appropriate in situations such as assisting tourists with various language backgrounds and needs. An experiment was done to establish ranges for NLU parameters such as pitch, duration, amplitude, and timbre. Subjects listened to randomly produced NLUs and selected applicable dialogue descriptors from: Positive, Negative, Greeting, Apology, Thanking, Hesitation, Question, Approval, Disapproval, Hushing, None of the Above. Factor analysis yielded 3 major factors, which were labeled as follows: 1) Affirmative vs Negative, 2) Questioning, and 3) Meaningful vs Indeterminate. NLUs with lower pitches, downward pitch patterns, and simpler timbres were found to be more Negative. Those with upward pitch patterns were more likely to be identified as a Question. In future work, experiments will be used to develop a model of NLU inference and interpretation within a Dialogue in terms of the dominant descriptors and to test the model in applications for tourist support systems.

With the recent expansion of the “electronic book” (hereinafter called “e-book”) market, more readers are reading books by e-books. Accordingly, readers' experiences over the network are being shared among readers of e-books. These are said to be social reading, and are drawing attention as new social media. In social reading, there are things you read together with comments on the contents. What kind of affective influence does this have on readers? In this paper we report on the results of this survey.

For the visually impaired, it is difficult to use CAPTCHA that was generated using visual information. The only way is to install a browser add-on and, by eliminating CAPTCHA, to collect information from the internet. However, it is not easy for visually impaired people to install an add-on, and there will also be disadvantages for general users if anyone is able to eliminate the CAPTCHA function. As such, using text that can be converted into voice, we proposed a sentence rearranging format of CAPTCHA that makes use of the human ability to understand context. Through experiments, we examined the kind of sentences, number of Japanese characters, number of sentences, and special characteristics of sentences that the sentence rearranging format could accommodate. Our conclusion was that, primarily, humans find it easy to understand context to the extent that the subject of the sentence is clearly indicated and is linked to the content of the sentence, that it is appropriate to use four sentences or fewer as multiple-choice options in problem sentences, and that less than 100 Japanese characters is ideal for the number of characters.

Gaining insight into the prevention of localized muscle fatigue has been an urgent challenge in cycling competitions. While studies have investigated muscle coordination only in a single lower limb in order to clarify efficient pedaling, known as pedaling skills, one of the cyclists’ pedaling strategies, few studies have assumed a kind of asymmetrical muscle coordination in both the left and right lower limbs. In this paper, the authors aimed to quantify the difference in the strategy between road cyclists with different cycling experiences by investigating the structure of inter-lower limb muscle coordination. Six healthy male cyclists with different cycling experiences were volunteered: club cyclists for more than 4 years (n = 3) and elite cyclists for more than 10 years (n = 3). As they pedaled for 30 seconds under the experimental condition of 150 W at 90 rpm, we measured a total of 10 muscle activity patterns from the lower limbs by using surface electromyography and a crank rotational angle. Next, we extracted the muscle coordination to explain how both the lower limbs coordinate to employ skills by applying non-matrix factorization. The results found asymmetrical muscle activity patterns between the lower extremities regardless of cycling experience, which indicated muscle coordination compensating for the asymmetry to raise pedaling efficiency. These findings should contribute to understanding not only different pedaling strategies but also to preventing localized muscle fatigue. Future work should investigate the muscle coordination pattern of both lower limbs against the effect of muscle fatigue.

Substitutional Reality (SR) is a technology that can render the boundary between the real and the virtual unclear by switching between live and recorded footage. In this research, we examined factors not yet investigated by SR and conducted experiments to investigate their effectiveness in an SR context.As existing research has, in order to standardize conditions, used recorded footage only, we conducted a comparative experiment in order to investigate the effectiveness of existing research, and to investigate whether there was any discrepancy between live and recorded footage. Since the existence of inconsistencies makes it trivial to identify footage as live, and since the human element makes the introduction of inconsistencies inevitable, we also conducted an experiment to investigate the extent of the combined effect communication (which has already been recognized as effective by prior research), inconsistencies, and other factors would have. Finally, as a non-human factor, we conducted an experiment investigating the effect of being made aware of the passage of time.We found that there was not a major discrepancy between live and recorded footage, but the existence of inconsistencies did enable users to recognize live footage. We also found that communication had a comparative larger impact on the user’s sense of reality than did inconsistencies or posture. We found that the sensation of the passage of time, conveyed to the subject by “resuming” the footage, has the potential to make the distinctions between live and recorded footage less clear.

In order to eliminate mismatches between the intentions of questioners and respondents of Question and Answer (Q&A) sites, nine factors of impressions for statements have experimentally been obtained. Factor scores are then estimated by using the feature values of statements. So far the possibility of searching respondents capable of giving appropriate answers to a newly posted question has been established for Auction, PC and Love. It has been shown that the distance and the number of appearance may help us select users who can give appropriate answers to a question. In the similar fashion, this paper tries to find the possibility of detecting respondents who can appropriately answer a newly posted question for other categories such as Internet, Politics, etc. As a result of analysis, several newly regarded categories shows the similar tendency as the previous analysis, while some categories related to Yahoo! JAPAN show less outstanding tendency.

In order to solve information overload in news information on the Internet, smartphone applications that provide news suitable for personal interests have been developed in previous research. However, if the user does not use the application, even if interesting news is distributed, since the news is not browsed, a loss of opportunity to learn the user's interest in the application has occurred. In this research, in order to prevent the loss of learning opportunities, we proposed an information distribution application that facilitates startup and browsing using smart watch. As a result of evaluation, no increase in the number of times of learnings was seen by using smart watch with this application. The cause is that the information displayed on the smart watch with a small screen size does not satisfy the amount of information desired by the user. Devices to provide users with saved information are required.

A series of workshops, called International Engineering Design Challenge (IEDC), are introduced. This series of workshops are held by three Japanese universities and two Thai universities. The main goal of the workshops is fostering participants skills for group works with various background members. In the workshops, each group tried to create a solution for an open question through group works. In this paper, the history of the workshops is shown, and the design concepts are discussed.

There has been no end to cases of infants opening drug containers meant for adults and accidentally ingesting them, and so it has become a social problem. The authors conducted experiments to evaluate child-resistant (CR) pill containers, which infants find difficult to open, and are also not difficult for ordinary people to use. In this paper, based on the findings of these experiments, we implemented systems thinking and interpreted human activities as an open-ended system, visualized the problem structure of drug ingestion accidents by infants, and were able to demonstrate modifications for preventing accidental ingestion by infants and matters requiring caution.

Design spans a wide range from the design of things, which targets color and form of products, to the design of experiences, which targets user experience in systems and services in recent year. In the design of things, many display techniques such as sketching and prototyping have been utilized to obtain optimal designs. Although the importance of display techniques is also recognized in the design of experiences, the techniques used in the design of experiences are often considered as applications of techniques used in the design of things. This study aims to help development of effective display techniques by clarifying the role and impact of the display techniques in the design of experiences. Specifically, the effect of design sketching, which is often used for product design, is compared to the effect of storyboarding, which is often used for animation production, in design exercises for college students with the theme of playground equipment.

Authors conducted a workshop as an experiment to improve the engineering design ability and international sense of college students. Six Japanese students and 11 Thai students participated in the workshop. 17 students were divided into 4 teams and they proposed a new communication medium for each team. The students received several lectures and group work for the proposal. The students answered a questionnaire before and after participating in the workshop. As a result of analyzing the questionnaire, Japanese students realized that their ability was improved more than Thai students. In addition, students in other fields than engineering students said that their abilities improved.

This paper reports the results of two separate experiments on the effects of multisensory stimulation on working capacity and stress reduction. The first experiment, employing auditory stimulation and lighting stimulation, revealed that multisensory stimulation, a combination of green light, and the sound of a murmuring stream, had a greater stress-reduction effect than single-sensory stimulation. The second experiment, which employed smell and lighting stimulation, revealed that a peppermint scent reinforced working capacity during arithmetic calculation. Green light combined with a peppermint scent also supported working capacity. Such multisensory interaction cannot be accounted for as merely the cumulative effect of a combination of single-sensory stimuli.

Multimodal stimuli are believed to provide greater and richer perceptional experience than that is caused by unisensory information. This study looks at the nature of crossmodal interactions between visual, auditory and olfactory modalities which occur in the same time and space in endeavor to find out the optimal combinations of lighting, sound and ambient scenting to psychologically support different activities in the presentation room. The experiment was conducted in the actual presentation room where 4 types of light settings, high-resolution nature sound and 2 types of ambient scenting were manipulated. 5-Scale Semantic Differential evaluation with 28 KANSEI words was conducted for 24 space samples with unimodal, bimodal and trimodal combinations. Later applied Principal Component Analysis to compare semantic differences in the evaluation structure that was reflected by how unimodal vs bimodal vs trimodal cues from these products created single or combined effects on people’s feelings in the space. The visual cues from lighting seemed to have created greater variance than the ones created by crossmodal interactions of auditory-olfactory stimuli, however, each constituent sense modality contributes differently to the integrated perception. This method can be used for verbalizing features of how each modality that occurs simultaneously functions in the integrated experience. It also enables us to select the optimal combinations of products with sensory cues such as lighting, sound and ambient scenting in the space design to support workers’ activities.

Music comprises numerous components and is thus difficult to express. If an image of music could be visually articulated, smoother communication could be achieved. Previous research has demonstrated that color is able to express impressions, and this study aims to express music through colors. Two experiments were conducted. Experiment 1 evaluated the impression of music and 40 compositions of varied genre were used as stimuli. Color stimuli were selected from the Practical Color Co-ordinate System (PCCS). 12 tones, 12 hues, and achromatic colors (in total 25 color stimuli) were used. Impressions were assessed using the 7 step Semantic Differential (SD) method that utilized 20 adjective pairs. Subjects first evaluated the impressions they received from the music, then selected colors that matched or mismatched those impressions. The music stimuli used in experiment1 were also employed for Experiment 2, which pertained to the expression of music through colors and an application was used for this purpose. The expression of the music was accomplished in two parts: by tone, and by hue through achromatic color. Subjects changed the size of the color patches displayed on the screen of the application to express the music they heard using colors. Results were recorded for each stimulus with each color designated a numerical value between 0 and 100. The results of the factor analysis for impression data revealed four factors. The regression analysis demonstrated that color expressions using tones in Experiment 2 corresponded to these factors.

The purpose of this study is to propose an automatic music playlist generation system that places the listener into a positive mood. The system uses two types of playlist: mood-boosting and mood-stabilizing. Both types have four patterns, with a different structure that shifts the listener’s mood. To create a playlist, the system calculates the probability of an impression of all audio tracks by using a multinomial mixture model. In addition, the system chooses audio tracks for the playlist based on such probability. For a calculation using the model, in this study 30 types of music feature data were extracted from 1,500 pieces of sample tracks. Tagged data expressing five impressions of these tracks from 13 Japanese listeners were also received. Every four patterns of the playlist of mood-boosting and mood-stabilizing tracks were evaluated using the multiple mood scales method. For all playlists, the results showed that the indicator of a negative mood after listening to a playlist decreased from the index as compared to before the track was played. In addition, the index of liveliness in the playlists of mood-boosting tracks and the index of well-being in the playlists of mood- stabilizing tracks increased. In conclusion, the results indicate that the proposed system can design playlists of both mood-boosting and mood-stabilizing tracks that place the listener in a positive mood.

To examine the effect on the olfactory impression by color stimuli from the aspects of the three attributes of color (hue, lightness, and chroma) and tones the seven types of olfactory impression for the color stimuli were measured using the subjective evaluation of five-point scale. The color stimuli were uniformly selected from twelve tones in PCCS and the achromatic colors of N1 to 9 added, the amount of color stimuli was 153 in total. The participants were asked to subjectively evaluate the olfactory impression of seven types (vanilla type, mint type, herb type, floral type, citrus fruit, soap, and putrid odor) for the stimulus presented by the display using the five-point scale. In the results of floral, mint, and citrus fruit smells, the evaluation values increase with the values of lightness and/or chroma of the hues of 6RP, 3G, and 8YR, respectively. Also, in the results of soap and vanilla smells, the evaluation values reach to the peak on 5B and 5Y or 8YR in pale and light greyish tones. Therefore, there is the relationship between the olfactory impression and three attributes of color including the tone as well as the previous studies.

Although the degree to which a human visually sense a wrinkle of a textiles product is graded on the basis of a visual evaluation called a sensory test, there are differences in the results depending on the condition of the judge, the personal experience, and the surrounding environment. Therefore, the 3D image of the wrinkle shape was obtained by using the 3D scanner for the AATTCC 3-Dimensional Wrinkle Recovery Replicas, and the wrinkle degree (height, change amount, etc.) was quantified through the digital image analysis. We aim to provide quantitative data for the development of textile products by establishing a system that can objectively evaluate the degree to which persons feel about wrinkles.

Erratum
ISASE2019 Session ID: KeyNoteTalk-1

Reference [10]
Incorrect:
H. B. Barlow, "Possible principles underlying the transformation of sensory messages," Sensory communication, pp. 217-234, 1961.
Correct:
X.-X. Wei and A. A. Stocker, "A Bayesian observer model constrained by efficient coding can explain 'anti-Bayesian' percepts," Nature Neuroscience, vol. 18, pp. 1509-1517, 2015.