In this study, we focus on the ability to recognize pain perceptions and thoughts and the ability to self-regulate cranial nerve activity occurring in the brain by self- introspection, and examined the effects of auditory neuro-feedback training (hereinafter referred to as NFBT) affects chronic pain patient. The case was a male who suffered from cervical spinal cord injury and chronic pain appeared around the shoulder joint. In this study, ABA method was used, we conducted control training of α waves using auditory feedback for phase B and did not give auditory feedback at phase A. As a result, the bodily perception sense and the catastrophic thought of pain improved, and the effect was confirmed even after the completion of training. These findings suggested that auditory NFBT for chronic pain may be effective not only to improve biasedness and distortion of pain perception but also to improve physical perception abnormality.

The aim of this study was to reveal the effects of conversation during driving on safety. This study investigated the driving performance and the hazard detection performance in different conversation conditions. The experimental factors were whether a driver conversed with a passenger next to him or her or via cell phone, conversation method (by cell phone or with passenger), hands to control a steering (one handed or two handed), and difficulty of conversation (easy or difficult). The participants were required to simultaneously carry out a simulated driving task and a hazard detection task. The results showed that there was no significant difference of the hazard detection performance (the reaction time and the percentage miss) among the conversation conditions. This indicates that hands-free phone conversation and conversation with a passenger deteriorate the hazard detection performance and impair the driving safety although the current regulation prohibits only hand-held phone conversation.

This paper describes the applicability of Affective Engineering to various problems of dementia in an aged society, which is now a major social problem. In recent years, the proportion of long-term care population has increased in proportion to the rise in the aging rate. Among them, there is a reality that dementia care is especially occupied by the top. The purpose of this research is to describe the significance and its role of “meta-sensitivity engineering” from the experience of the author based on the serious social issues in the super aged society as mentioned above. Therefore, the discussion in this paper shows one guideline for future affective/Kansei engineering.

Thus far, the quality of cedar wooden-shingle boards, a traditional Japanese roofing material, has only been visually evaluated, because quantitative criteria have not been established. The purpose of this research is to investigate a criterion to determine the quality of wooden-shingle boards based on their physical properties. A visual evaluation by experts was conducted to assess the quality, as well as visual and physical attributes of board samples. The relationship between these results and the physical properties (color, bending strength, and annual rings) was analyzed through multiple regression analysis. The attributes of “good product” and “suitability” correlated well with the physical properties of the color and annual rings. A small contribution from the bending coefficients was also observed for the attribute of “good product.” These results indicate that the quality of wooden-shingle boards can now be estimated quantitatively from the colorimetric value and the number of annual rings.

It is difficult to find out what consumers actually demand, in a society with various information and products. Under such circumstances, the importance of finding consumer insight is increasing. However, it is difficult to find out consumer insight. In this paper, the effect of using visuals for the discovery of consumer insight was verified compared with using text. The experiment was conducted with two groups. Each group came up with ideas on two themes. At that time, the following conditions were set: one is to use visuals and the other is to use text. Then, the contents were analyzed using Finke’s Geneplopre model. The result showed that, the number of ideas with visuals were fewer than the number of ideas with text. However, it was implied that using visuals allows for deeper and wider interpretation of ideas, which could lead us closer to true consumer insight.

There are many studies on the texture of objects. However, the relationship between the texture impression of the fabric and the spectral distribution of the illumination light is not clear. The purpose of this research is to investigate the influence of the spectral distribution of the illumination light on the texture impression of the fabric. (1) The influence of the color on the texture impression by changing the color stimulus of the image using the fabric image was confirmed. Next, (2) the glossy fabric was observed under different light sources with different spectral distributions, and the influence of the color appearance of the fabric on the texture impression of the glossy fabric was examined. As a result, it was found that the vividness of color (chroma C*, colorfulness M) has an influence on the texture impression of the glossy fabric both in the case of the observation stimulus being the fabric image and the case of the illuminated glossy fabric.