Prediction and evaluation errors of self-performance (overestimation and underestimation) occasionally bring serious consequences. This study examined possible causes for overestimation and underestimation using a newly devised experimental paradigm. The experiment comprised two sessions: in the first session, participants learned rules for button presses in response to particular combinations of digits, and in the second session, they performed a similar task with the same rules but in response to English letters and they were randomly assigned to one of three tasks with different button configurations: Sequential, Reversed, and Partially reversed. The participants predicted and evaluated their performance before and after each session, respectively. It was found that participants tended to overestimate both predictions and evaluations of performance on the Partially reversed task. These results suggest that differential changes in stimulus-response association lead to differentially biased estimations. In particular, people might underestimate the switching costs from ordinal to non-ordinal representation.

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We have presented a novel method for human gait recognition, which is based on detecting the electrostatic induction current generated by the walking motion under non-contact conditions. The method involves the measurement of this electrostatic induction current, which flows through a measurement electrode. A model for the electrostatic induction current generated because of a change in the electric potential of the human body has been proposed. This model effectively explains the behavior of the waveform of the electrostatic induction current flowing through the electrode. Walking waveforms of 29 healthy individuals aged between 12 and 53 years were obtained. All the subjects wore rubber-soled shoes during the experiment. After Fourier analysis of the obtained waveform, the differentiated waveform of the gait spectrum was obtained in order to derive the subtle characteristics from the gait spectrum. The Pearson correlation coefficients with each other were obtained by data processing using methods such as differentiation and normalization. Results show that there is poor correlation between the walking waveforms. This suggests that the proposed technique based on the detection of subtle differences in the walking signal can be successfully applied for human identification.

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Recent information technology enables us to use fragrance as media content. Additional use of fragrance to information of sight will achieve higher effects in new products and Web browsing than ever. Referring to the previous studies, this study fundamentally investigated the effects of combination of color and fragrance. To investigate the effect, two experiments using color and fragrance were conducted. In the experiment 1, eleven subjective evaluations on each six color and each ten fragrance were obtained. The experiment 2 investigated the effect of combining the colors and the fragrances, and the number of the combination was sixty. Twelve subjects participated in both of the two experiments. Effect of each color and each fragrance was investigated with Freedman test in both of the experiments. In the result of the experiment 1, significant effects of color or fragrance were observed in all eleven adjective pairs. In the result of the experiment 2, significant effect of color and fragrance were observed in most of evaluation indices. By comparing these results, change in evaluation value by combining color and fragrance from presenting only color or fragrance was investigated with Sign test and Holm's test. Significant changes in evaluation value by the combination were shown in many cases, and most of them were affected by adding fragrance on color. In contrast, significant changes caused by adding color on fragrance were observed in only six cases.

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The sense of touch is essential to perform discriminating tasks in virtual reality applications or virtual training systems. To discriminate between different virtual objects, a human operator needs to clearly perceive the stiffness of each object. Stiffness is not only a material property, but also a characteristic of the particular object and express how it is being touched. Stiffness affects the perception of surface topography and depends on the area of applied force. While haptic-enabled virtual reality training systems have been received considerable attention in recent years, our main criticism on these systems is that their virtual environments provide homogeneous haptic stiffness and less perceptually accurate virtual space. This paper investigated how texture affects the perception of haptic stiffness of the virtual object. By performing a psychophysical experiment, we determined that human operator' average accuracy in discriminating perceived haptic stiffness of the virtual object is depending on its texture information and spatial variations. Our findings underscore the importance of implementing spatially varying haptic parameters.

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The present study attempts to build a KANSEI performance matrix, aiming towards a consensus building according to a performance design system for the planning and design stages of bridges. KANSEI performance is considered from both points of agreement performance related to the design concept and consideration performance related to the design elements and, by expanding it into a performance matrix, the consensus building among the various related parts can be carried out more easily. Agreement performance related to design concept and consideration level related to design elements were calculated applying the score obtained, according to Quantification Theory Type I, from calculations based on a questionnaire proving that they can be plotted on a KANSEI performance matrix.

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In the present study, we investigated whether the emotional S1-S2 paradigm is suitable for the evaluation of kansei information. To this end, we measured stimulus preceding negativity (SPN) and late positive potential (LPP) as components of the event-related potential, examining 1) whether the cue words enhance the SPN relating the anticipation and expectation to upcoming emotional pictures and 2) whether matched combinations of cue words and emotional pictures elicited changes in LPP amplitude. Comparing SPN amplitude suggested that SPN reflected anticipation for upcoming pictures evoked by the cue word. The change in LPP amplitude implied that LPP could serve as an index of the correspondence between a kansei word-elicited cognitive representation, and an actual product. These physiological indices have the potential to aid the development of evaluation procedures in kansei engineering

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Recognition of objects produced by others' actions is often accompanied by activation of motor-related regions, and this is thought to reflect retrieval of the stored motion programs associated with those actions. The primary goal of this paper is to examine whether and how motor-related “experience” associated with objects modulates neural responses in the sensorimotor circuit when objects are visually recognized with the intention to imitate the actions that created those objects. To achieve that goal, we investigated how the motor cortex is activated in healthy young adults while they are observing familiar and unfamiliar handwritings. We found that the motor cortex tended to show more pronounced activation when the participants saw handwritings written by others rather than by themselves, and when they saw types of strokes that they were accustomed to writing. These findings suggest an interplay between perception and memorized action in the visuo-motor system.

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Based on the theory of Yakuzen, food as medicial treatment has affected dietary over a long history . Especially, there are food care principle which take the advantage of food taste and food character to support health care and treat the disease. Yakuzen theory is still regarded as a hypothesis. Many aspects of herbal treatments' effectiveness remain to be clarified. Nevertheless, research results show that many rules have been advanced for foods' associated medical roles. Kikei, one promising hypothesis, holds that food taste will play a special medicinal role in different organs. This study, using data mining techniques, particularly addresses the relation between the food taste, food character and Kikei role to extract the associated rules. Results of cluster analysis and chi-square tests show a therapeutic effect, which encourages our establishment of a systematic methodology related to food care.

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An electronic-mechanical game was developed for elderly and disabled people so that they could have an enjoyable way to train their cognitive functions. Because our players were not familiar with electronic games, we proposed constraints and requirements to the game so that they were able to play the game and were willing to play repeatedly. Here, we describe our proposed game, “Ikiiki-pom,” which was tested on a group of approximately 80 elderly people with energetic bodies, and about 10 people who were physically challenged at facilities, and about 15 young students with developmental disabilities.

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To deal with variations in poses that are rotated in depth, the authors have previously introduced a method where the Gabor jets of different poses are estimated and used as training data for a discriminant analysis-based classifier. To improve the viability of the authors' methods, experimental evaluations are conducted under realistic scenarios.

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Why do people want what they want? This question has fascinated researchers in design field, and continues to motivate them today. Preference has been addressed as an important theme in design whereas Preference Mechanism has not been well explained. This study shows the relationship between Preference Mechanism and product evaluation values using automotive images. This study investigates if reconciled-preference shows the same results in various Reality Sets (one product image, separated product image). Reconciled-preference images are prepared through item screening reflecting Subjective Preference (like-dislike). In this experiment, two types of stimuli are used as Reality Sets: (1) car-front images as Uninominal Reality Sets (2) car-front-side images as Binominal Reality Sets. Twenty university students participated in the experiment. The results show that while Uninominal Reality Sets shows a statistical significant difference not only between Subjective Preference and aesthetic, but also between Subjective Preference and pleasure; Binominal Reality Sets shows a statistical significant difference between Subjective Preference and preference. It is worth noticing that Reality Sets affect product evaluation. It gives a perspective to understand what makes people modify their preferences in product evaluation.

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Traditional education system continuously converts to the e-Learning method and three dimensional virtual environment becomes powerful way of delivering knowledge. Learning environment and non-verbal communication are highly influence to the performance of the student. Avatar is a graphical representation of the user in virtual world. It has only ordering connection with the student and Avatar, and virtual world seems some artificial atmosphere. In here, a system is developed to visualize the real user facial emotion through the face of the Avatar in virtual world. Extraction of the real user facial emotion, creation of emotion models in virtual world and establishment of connection between real world and virtual world are the major steps to accomplish the aim of this research. Real user facial expression identification system is constructed based on the Geometric feature-based method. Avatar changing system is implemented in virtual environment and it is included four basic facial expressions. Ultimately, the facial expressions of the real user are transferred to the virtual environment and it is appeared on the face of the Avatar. Facial emotion of the student is visualized through the Avatar in the Virtual Learning Environment. An experiment was conducted with this facial emotion system and it was carried on as a discussion. During the experiment, student discussed with their facial emotion with the live Avatar. The result of the experiment showed that, facial emotional Avatar is important to e-Learning and it is increased the reality of the learning environment. Further, it indicates that the engaging with three dimensions Virtual Learning Environment with facial emotion is very interesting thing and that is a plus point for future e-Learning.

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The prediction of the inner structure and physical properties of textile products is very important for making the Kansei products with good performance. Then it becomes necessary to construct the models of the textile structure by suitable computer simulation. For the simulations, differently from the conventional methods, we have devised a method based on the imitation of an actual operation of the loom. This textile structure model is made by interlacing warps and wefts. This yarn model is based on Breen's particle model. However, there occurs a problem that the outermost yarns of the textile are curved. In this paper, in order to solve this problem, we propose an improved simulation method that imposes a continuity condition on the textile structure model. Also, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the method by showing the improved simulation results for several models of fabrics, in which we have confirmed that the simulation has successfully obtained the unit texture of textile models.

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In face-to-face communication, the listener's body movements are often observed to occur nearly simultaneously with changes in the speaker's voice pattern. This synchronization between speaker and listener is called entrainment. The present study investigated the relationship between classroom seating positions and instructor-student entrainment. Four university instructors individually gave 60-minute lectures to classes of 36-64 students in classrooms. The body movements of the students were captured using a video camera, and the voices of instructors were recorded via a microphone. For each pixel, the covariance between the sound level changes of a instructor's voice and the power of the brightness fluctuations of the pixel was calculated as an index of the entrainment level of each location in the classroom. The results suggested that students sitting in the middle row of the middle column in the classroom showed higher entrainment levels. Moreover, changes of entrainment level were found to reflect changes in student's interest in the lecture.

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