Older Internet users are increasing more and more every year all over the world. The information accessibility standard for Web contents (JIS X 8341-3) was provided, and many researchers have been pursuing the usability of Web site. However, it is possible that we don't have a good result only by the improvement of Web page design. The reason was why we didn't consider perceptual, cognitive and motor ability of older adults to the design of Web pages. The aim of this study was to propose a method to measure perceptual, cognitive and motor ability and to examine the affect of perceptual, cognitive, and motor abilities, and display information on Web navigation. We selected display information that was calculated from number of links, and age as experimental factors. It was explored how the display information, age and the test scores of perceptual, cognitive and motor abilities influenced Web navigation time. Using a multiple regression analysis, the relationship among the navigation time and the two factors above was estimated. The display information influenced Web navigation performance for both age groups (young adults and older adults). The more the quantity of information was, the longer the Web navigation time was. In addition to this tendency, the depth of display layer was also found to affect the Web navigation time, in particular, for older adults. We found that older adults' perceptual, cognitive, and motor ability declined as compared with young adults. As a result of multiple regression analysis, we found that these abilities and display information contributed to the increase of the Web navigation time.

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Thermal pain threshold is the temperature of excited receptor nerve when the subject perceives pain, and is widely known in medical and physiological fields as about 45°C which was measured with the traditional contact-type thermal dolorimeters. It is predicted that there is a considerable temperature difference, because a temperature measurement sensor and perceptive nerves are insulated with poor heat conductors. The sensor measures just the temperature of itself, however, the temperature of the receptor is not directly measurable with the sensor. Thus, the purposes of this study are to numerically quantify the temperature difference between the sensor and the receptor, and to estimate the true pain threshold temperature. By performing heat transfer simulations based on the finite element method with a precise skin tissue model, changes in the temperature of the receptor with time were analyzed. As result, the systematic errors in the traditional measurements were about -2°C and thus the true threshold temperatures were estimated as about 43°C. Then the effects of the randomized distribution of receptors, the heating rate and the control of the initial temperature of tissue were also quantitatively researched.

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The present paper examines influences of four key ad elements of pictorial, catch copy, brand logo, and ad size (named as styling elements) on visual attentions towards the advertisement during reading. A series of experiments in which 101 students participated was performed in order to obtain eye tracking data during reading of 48 print advertisements. We calculated the following two indices relating to visual attention: “Total dwelling duration” and “number of fixations”. We analysed the relationships between these indices and the styling factors. Based on the analysis results, we could identify main/interaction effects of the styling factors onto each index representing tendencies of subjects' visual attention towards print advertisements. In addition, we could find that the styling factors' influences on visual attention to advertisements varied depending on subjects' status in reading (careful reading and superficial scanning) by stratifying the print advertisements into two groups based on the estimated degree of subjects' interest.

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In recent times, information terminals that have been set up in public spaces provide us with various and useful services. However, in spite of the development of informational security, people feel uneasy to handle information in these public spaces. This paper focuses on the partitions —in computing workspace— which control the relationships between a user and a third person, as users feel uneasy, especially when a third person constantly passes by the workspace. In Experiment 1, we measured the height of the partition whereby users can handle information with reassurance. The results of the Experiment revealed that the partition height required by users depends on the kind of information users are handling. In Experiment 2, we tested the relationship between the distance maintained by surrounding people and the height of the partition of the workplace. The results revealed that the higher the partition, the shorter were the distances maintained by the third person. Finally, we proposed a computing workspace where the user can handle information with reassurance and where the presence of the third person does not overly concern the user.

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