The International Ergonomics Association （IEA） has revised the core competencies in Human Factors and Ergonomics （HFE）. The revised HFE core competencies are integrated into seven essential units defining the profession and cross-sectionally emphasizing the systems approach. The revised HFE core competencies also provide us with the following new insights for understanding and responding to societal demands on HFE professionals: 1） proposing solutions based on stakeholder engagement, 2） harmonizing interactions between system elements based on a systems approach, and 3） taking initiatives in creating an HFE-driven future vision of work and life style. These are important research and practice issues that HFE researchers, practitioners, and professionals in Japan should learn and implement while responding to the global HFE trends.

The purpose of this study is to clarify the function of the white cane tips. There are at least ten types of white cane tips used by people with visual impairment. Therefore, I first investigated the types of white cane tips used in O&M （Orientation and Mobility） training and their required functions in 71 blind schools in Japan. As a result of the investigation, it was found that the white cane tips required for O&M training had three functions: ease of replacement, ease of operation, and ease of road identification. Additionally, ten people with visual impairment conducted sensory rating tests for these three functions. As a result, none of the four white cane tips used in the school for the blind （Pencil-type, Marshmallow-type, Palm-type, and Roller-type） had all these three functions.

A reduction in friction is one of the illusions related to the sense of touch. This effect is experienced when a finger comes in contact with an object that vibrates at a frequency greater than or equal to approximately 20 kHz. The reduction in frictional force is greater for vibrating objects than for objects that are not vibrating and when the finger is unable to follow the object’s movement. New tactile devices can potentially be developed using this friction reduction effect by controlling the friction coefficient. Therefore, in this study, we aim to develop a device that can measure the frictional force exerted by a vibrating object and clarify the effect of amplitude on the subjective slipperiness and dynamic friction coefficient. In an experiment involving ten male and female participants, the slipperiness of an object vibrating at 40 kHz with amplitudes of 0-2.5 μm was evaluated by the participants through touching with their index fingers. The experimental results suggested that subjective slipperiness can be controlled in four steps by changing the amplitude. Furthermore, it was found that factors other than the dynamic friction coefficient may affect subjective slipperiness.

The air traffic control （ATC） tasks are widely known as multiple and complicated tasks with high cognitive demand. For improving task performances while reducing controller’s workloads, this research aims to develop screen design policy of ATC consoles based on the experimental analyses of the effects of color salience on task performances, situation awareness （SA） and workloads of participants. We carried out an experiment with six skilled air traffic controllers as participants focusing on color salience which is one of the user interface elements that has a significant impact on visual attention in ATC. The experimental task consisted of multiple tasks, which are the issue of necessary instructions to aircraft as the main task, and hand-in and hand-off operations from/to neighboring ATC sectors as the sub task. Experimental conditions provided three patterns of screen designs with （a） no, （b） small, and （c） large gap of color salience between aircraft needing the swift issue of ATC instructions and the others. The result suggested that the performances of the main task and the cognitive workload were relatively improved in the small salience gap condition.

The heat insulation effect of soap foam layer during showering was evaluated in 14 healthy young males. The evaluations took place in a climatic chamber which the ambient temperature was set at 25℃. The participants kept a sitting rest during experiment. Soap foam （named Foam） produced from 500 ml of soap solution by using the bubble shower device and same soap water without foaming （named Control） were applied and leaved over the whole-body skin area of the subjects for 5 minutes, and then were washed away by water. The temperature of both soap were adjusted at 40℃. Tympanic and skin temperatures, skin blood flows, thermal sensations and thermal comforts were compared between Foam and Control. The chest skin temperature and the finger skin blood flow markedly decreased after applying the soap in both conditions. The decreases in Foam were significantly （p＜0.05） smaller than those in Control. Cold sensation and thermal discomfort were also less in Foam than in Control （p＜0.05）. It is considered that the soap foam layer would diminish the heat loss from skin and reduce cold sensation, which could allow to attenuate physiological and psychological stress against coldness during showering in winter.

The presence of information and communication devices, such as smartphones, in the work environment is often considered problematic, causing distraction and interfering with the worker’s concentration. The purpose of this study was to examine whether this distraction varies with the breadth of visual attention and whether it is affected by the condition of the smartphone （no smartphone, the smartphone with powered-off, the smartphone with powered-on）. Therefore, a dual-task experiment including the N-back task （task difficulty: high vs low） and the luminance change detection task was conducted. The results showed that even in situations where the difficulty of the N-back is high and the useful field of view is narrowed, the presence of a smartphone attracts attention, regardless of the smartphone’s power status.