The objective of this study is to extract dimensions in impressions of colors and fragrances, and to examine their harmonious relationship. Experiment A: One hundred subjects were requested to describe their impressions of eight fragrances, and to select harmonious/disharmonious colors from color charts. Experiment B: One hundred subjects described their impression of 18 colors and each color's degree of harmonization with each of the eight fragrances. In addition, we combined the results of Experiment A and Experiment B, and conducted several analyses. The factor analysis revealed the MILD factor and CLEAR factor for the dimensions of each fragrance, color, and combination of color and fragrance. The multiple regression analysis revealed the following tendency: the smaller the distance between colors and fragrances on the dimensions, the greater is the rise in harmony; conversely, the greater the distance, the greater is the disharmony.

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We examined how test subject impressions of music changed when artificial vibrations were incorporated as constituent elements of a musical composition. In this study, test subjects listened to several music samples in which different types of artificial vibration had been incorporated and then subjectively evaluated any resulting changes to their impressions of the music. The following results were obtained: i) Even if rhythm vibration is added to a silent component of a musical composition, it can effectively enhance musical fitness. This could be readily accomplished when actual sounds that had been synchronized with the vibration components were provided beforehand. ii) The music could be listened to more comfortably by adding not only a natural vibration extracted from percussion instruments but also artificial vibration as tactile stimulation according to intentional timing. Furthermore, it was found that the test subjects' impression of the music was affected by a characteristic of the artificial vibration. iii) Adding vibration to high-frequency areas can offer an effective and practical way of enhancing the appeal of a musical composition. iv) The movement sensations of sound and vibration could be experienced when the strength of the sound and vibration are modified in turn. These results suggest that the intentional application of artificial vibration could result in a sensitivity amplification factor on the part of a listener.

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In the present study, we evaluated important factors of the feelings of comfort associated with wet cotton hand towels, or oshibori. First, the following adjectives were extracted as words used to evaluate the characteristics of the oshibori: “large,” “pretty,” “comfortable,” “high-grade,” “shapely,” “soft,” “favorite,” “thick,” “clean,” “moist,” “luxurious,” “heavy,” “strong,” “safe,” “good-touch,” and “rare.” We then conducted a subjective evaluation of 25 kinds of oshibori of various sizes and thicknesses. Forty males and twenty-four females, ranging in age from their twenties to fifties, participated in the experiment. Each subject evaluated the oshibori by grading them from one to five based on the extracted descriptive characteristics. Factor analysis was conducted on the experimental results and the following three factors were extracted; the first factor defined as “dignity factor,” the second factor defined as “preference factor,” and the third factor defined as “touch factor.” The score for dignity increased as the size of the oshibori increased. The score for preference was high when the size of the oshibori was between 25 cm × 25 cm and 30 cm × 30 cm. These results suggest that subjects felt high-class if the size of the oshibori was greater than 30 cm × 30 cm, but subjects most preferred oshibori that were between 25 cm × 25 cm and 30 cm × 30 cm. No notable trend was found between the thickness of oshibori and the three factors. We then analyzed the experimental data focusing on the following viewpoints; “gender” and “generation.” of the subjects, and discussed how these factors effected on the feelings of oshibori using the Mann-Whitney U test and the Kruskal-Wallis H test. The analyzed results show that the female subjects tended to evaluate more highly on the evaluation words of “thick,” “moist,” and “heavy,” that the evaluations of “large,” “pretty,” “comfortable,” “high-grade,” “shapely,” “soft,” “favorite,” “thick,” “moist,” “luxurious,” “heavy,” “strong,” “safe,” “good-touch,” and “rare” varied depending on generation.

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In this study, we investigated the nature of cross-modal associations between colors and vowels. In Experiment 1, we examined the patterns of synesthetic correspondence between colors and vowels in a perceptual similarity experiment. The results were as follows: red was chosen for /a/, yellow was chosen for /i/, and blue was chosen for /o/ significantly more than any other vowels. Interestingly this pattern of correspondence is similar to the pattern of colored hearing reported by synesthetes. In Experiment 2, we investigated the robustness of these cross-modal associations using an implicit association test (IAT). A clear congruence effect was found. Participants responded faster in congruent conditions (/i/ and yellow, /o/ and blue) than in incongruent conditions (/i/ and blue, /o/ and yellow). This result suggests that the weak synesthesia between vowels and colors in non-synesthtes is not the fact of mere conscious choice, but reflects some underlying implicit associations.

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We investigated whether audiovisual synchrony perception for speech could change after observation of the audiovisual temporal mismatch. Previous studies have revealed that audiovisual synchrony perception is re-calibrated after exposure to a constant timing difference between auditory and visual signals in non-speech. In the present study, we examined whether this audiovisual temporal recalibration occurs at the perceptual level even for speech (monosyllables). In Experiment 1, participants performed an audiovisual simultaneity judgment task (i.e., a direct measurement of the audiovisual synchrony perception) in terms of the speech signal after observation of the speech stimuli which had a constant audiovisual lag. The results showed that the “simultaneous” responses (i.e., proportion of responses for which participants judged the auditory and visual stimuli to be synchronous) at least partly depended on exposure lag. In Experiment 2, we adopted the McGurk identification task (i.e., an indirect measurement of the audiovisual synchrony perception) to exclude the possibility that this modulation of synchrony perception was solely attributable to the response strategy using stimuli identical to those of Experiment 1. The characteristics of the McGurk effect reported by participants depended on exposure lag. Thus, it was shown that audiovisual synchrony perception for speech could be modulated following exposure to constant lag both in direct and indirect measurement. Our results suggest that temporal recalibration occurs not only in non-speech signals but also in monosyllabic speech at the perceptual level.

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The decision to choose the appropriate product matching the preference of each individual is based on the psychological impression of the adjective and the alternatives. The preference for a product group and physical condition also affect decision-making. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of differences in the preference of wine and changes in hunger level on the psychological and neuro-physiological aspects of decision-making where the subjects were asked to choose their most favorite wine after sniffing the aroma of several wines. The psychological aspects of decision-making while sniffing five different kinds of wine were evaluated by the analytical hierarchal process (AHP) method, while the neuro-physiological aspects were evaluated by measuring the level of oxygenated hemoglobin concentrations (O₂Hb) in the process of smelling the wine aromas within three minutes compared to when the non-odor and alcoholic solutions were presented. AHP analysis showed that the adjective “Favorite” was given the highest importance and a white wine with a sweet aroma was the most favored wine, regardless of the wine preference. The normalized mean O₂Hb levels in each minute showed that, in the case of the wine lovers, the time course of the O₂Hb level, decreased when they sensed the wine aroma compared to when they sensed non-odor solutions, and, in non-wine lovers, the O₂Hb levels remained at higher values compared to the smell of the non-odor solution when they sensed the aroma of the alcoholic solution. The results indicate that there are differences with regard to decision-making between the psychological and physiological aspects when people are made to choose their most favorite wine by sniffing wine aromas.

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