One approach to verifying infants' preferences toward colors and shapes is to have them make selections on or rank the stimuli they prefer. Although this approach clarifies their preference tendencies, it does not sufficiently identify the degree to which they prefer each stimulus. Therefore, in this study, we used a rating scale to quantify infants' preference level and verify the impact that colors and shapes have on synthetic figures. The study involved the use of a 5-point rating scale on 60 children (aged 4 - 6 years) to measure their preference for 7 color stimuli, 6 shape stimuli, and 42 synthetic shapes. Results showed that color preference displayed more dominantly than shape preference in infants' preference toward synthetic shapes. Therefore, it was concluded that color preference determined the preference toward synthetic figures. Furthermore, results demonstrated the efficacy of quantifying the preference level of infants via rating scales.

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We investigated the RGB and XYZ components of the natural colors (two cherry blossoms, i.e., Someiyoshino and Youkou, and the emission of Heike-firefly), and the physiological effects on Japanese and foreign people were compared. The natural colors were digitally measured as RGB colors, and then they were used as color stimuli. The psychological effects were investigated by administering a questionnaire, which was based on the Semantic differential (SD) method. From the results of the questionnaire, the degrees of expression for the natural colors were quite different between Japanese and foreigners. The kansei on the natural colors between Japanese and foreigners were also different in terms of psychophysical quantity and physical cognition. The results of factor analysis showed that the color of Youkou gave pleasantness to Japanese people, whereas the colors of Someiyoshino and firefly gave pleasantness to foreign people.

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We examined influences of differing family compositions and support of others on work stress and psychosomatic reactions among female nurses. We conducted a questionnaire survey of the work stress of 928 female nurses using the Brief Job Stress Questionnaire (BJSQ) as an estimative index of mental health. Findings revealed that support of others significantly reduced work stress but had no effect on psychosomatic reactions. There were no significant differences in the extent of support among four groups of unmarried, single mother, couple only, and married with children. Depression was significantly higher in the unmarried group than the married with children group. Physical complaints were higher in the couple only group than other groups. We have confirmed that the family composition and support of others have various influences on the mental health of female nurses and the analysis from these aspects is useful for the future evaluation of BJSQ data.

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Walking, which is one of the most important movements people perform in their daily lives, is constrained by clothing, and it is often assumed that the characteristics of walking motion vary with the impression created by the clothing one wears. We investigated the validity of this assumption by selecting two differently colored shirts (white and pink) and two different styles of pants (skinny-leg and flared-leg) and utilizing acceleration sensors to measure the effects of the four resulting combinations of clothing on subjects' walking motion. Notwithstanding individual differences, we classified the walking motion of the 15 female college students who participated in the study on the basis of not only associations prompted by clothing color and type, but also changes in arm swing and foot movement.

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This paper investigates effects of temperature and density of lemon aroma on a subjective evaluation. We used the semantic differential (SD) method in the evaluation test with the following 5 words; clean, thick, refreshing, relaxing, and favorite-and their antonyms. We made a total of 12 aromatic gases (4 amounts of lemon essential oil (0.5, 1, 5, and 10 mg in a glass bottle of 1.35 L volume) × 3 temperatures (5, 25, and 60 degrees in Celsius)), and performed a quantitative analysis of limonene, β-pinene, γ-terpinene, and citral in the gases by a gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) measurement. As results, we found that the effect of the temperature of aromatic gas was dominant for the evaluation items; cleanliness, refresh feeling, relaxing, and preference, and that the lemon aroma less or equal 25 degrees in Celsius was effective for the impressions of cleanliness, refresh feeling, relaxing, and preference.

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Recently, Customer experiences are significant not only for Marketing but also for product design including Affective engineering. As far as its Customer experience is concerned, qualitative investigation is focused on it. However, a quantitative investigation method has not been established. Then, since customer experience is based on inference of past memory and experience, this paper devised an evaluation method presumed from uncertain evidence. As a method of analysis, a questionnaire survey was conducted using the experiences of using Women's commuter bags and the evaluation items of sensory experiences of them. We also analyzed the survey results using Rough sets and Multiple regression analysis. At the time of this analysis both positive and negative decision classes of Rough sets were used and positive and negative evaluations were analyzed. As a result of analysis, knowledge of design was obtained from Rough sets. From the marketing perspective, evaluation terms with high contribution of Customer experience were extracted by Multiple regression analysis.

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In our previous paper, we proposed a concept named “behavioral space” describing shapes of persons in various scenes of human behaviors. Using the concept, we discussed design processes of fashion apparels by using the theory of sets referring to the theory about product design processes by Yoshikawa and his coworkers. The aim of this study is to elucidate design processes of fashion apparels designed by fashion designer being worldwide active in global fashion businesses for the sake of contribution to internationalize Japanese fashion apparel businesses. In this study we discuss about the topological structure of “behavioral space” and the coordinate system of behavioral space. Herewith, it is found that outstanding designer is aware of shapes of his customers by categorizing shapes of persons on the earth by introducing his own axes in behavioral space.

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In fashion Business, turnover of stores is decided by the product appeals of fashion apparels and selling capacity of the fashion apparel store. In order to increase the turnover, the selection of apparel goods which are preferred by consumers of the shop is most important. Next, the selling capacity is important. In previous papers, we discussed about the relation between apparel goods and consumers. Fashion apparel is thought to be a carrier of the information which is proposed by the fashion designer. On this account, we assumed the purchase and sale of fashion apparels are the diffusion phenomena of the information in the behavioral space. From the point of view, we propose a mathematical model describing the purchase and sale of the fashion apparels.

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What relationships exist between music and emotions? We believe that information on motion exists in one of the most important relationships. We investigated whether the addition of visual motion images while listening to music changed the evaluation of aesthetic harmony. Subjects were asked to watch two kinds of animations (uniform velocity and uniformly accelerated motions) moving in synchronization with music and to evaluate them with reference to aesthetic harmony. The result showed that uniformly accelerated motion was preferred to uniform velocity motion. The characteristics of uniformly accelerated motions, namely, changes between strain and relaxation, were related to the mechanism of musical emotion.

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This study aims to investigate the effect of silhouette on impressions of fashion coordinate. In order to separate the effect of silhouette from that of the other factors, silhouette images and scrambled images were prepared for 25 ladies fashion photographs. Fourteen participants viewed the two types of images and the original images and rated the impressions of each image with 5 pairs of affective words and 7 point scales. The result showed that the ratings on silhouette images and that on original images were moderately correlated for about half of the participants with three affective words, ‘unique-common’, ‘adultlike-childlike’, and ‘like-dislike’. On the other hand, the effect of silhouette was considerably weaker with two affective words, ‘active-modest’ and ‘light-heavy’.

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This study examined how the view from a room window affects evaluations of the room's interior atmosphere by using the Semantic Differential Method. Participants rated the interior atmosphere of room images, which were in combinations of four different living room styles (classic, south European, Western, and Japanese) with five different window views (a business district, seashore, natural surroundings, housing estate and rice fields). Factor analysis was conducted on the ratings. As a result, three factors - of “comfortable feeling,” “luxuriousness,” and “lightness” - were found as the interior atmosphere of the rooms. The calculated factor scores revealed that the difference in window view changed the degree of “comfortable feeling” and “luxuriousness” in some room styles. Through these findings, the psychological value of considering the window view when designing rooms were discussed.

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