High realistic sensation of a cyberspace is accomplished by the addition of olfactory information. However, productions of scents were limited to very simple variation, and the olfactory adaptation occurred and the scent remained in the air. Then, we propose a control method of olfactory production with Scents Array. We aim to develop a structure which can provide a viewer complex productions of scents easily set accurately. As the proposal method, we constructed four rules of perfume ejection and Scent Array that converts scents productions in a cyberspace or a movie into order of pulse ejection. Evaluation experiments showed that the subjects were able to feel complex productions of scents. Additionally, the subjects recognized a scent source in the cyberspace and a strength change of scents more accurately by using the proposal method.

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An expanded range of expression will be possible in cyberspace and the real world if we can perform scent presentation that matched the use purpose. Numerous studies investigating the effects of fragrances have been conducted using physiological information. However, conflicting results regarding the relation between scents and emotions have been obtained, and no consensus has been reached. In addition, previous studies investigating the influence of scents on feelings have considered only the types of scents. Therefore, we focus in this paper on the strength of fragrance and propose a scent presentation technique that varies the strength of scents with time. We change the strength of the scent based on three patterns: pink noise, random and constant. We estimate the feelings of subjects by analyzing brain waves and heart rate. We experimentally confirm that scent with a constant strength is the most effective of the three scent presentation patterns for increasing relaxation, and that the relaxation effect of pink noise cannot be applied to fragrance.

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Several studies have indicated that there is a general improvement in mental work performance under odor exposure. However, in these studies odor stimuli were prepared experimentally without considering individual differences for odor preference and impression. In this study, participants chose an odor according to their preference (Exp. 1) or feeling of arousal to perform tasks (Exp. 2) and whether the odor improve performance was examined. The tasks with low-difficulty and high-difficulty were done. As results, subjective refreshing odors improved task performance, whereas favorite odors only maintained reduction of mood for the high-difficulty task. These results suggest that a subjective refreshing odor maintained adequate vigilance to improve task performance of low or high difficulty.

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For the effective transmission of olfactory information together with audio/visual information, it is necessary to control the presentation of odor in accordance with the changing images and sounds presented. However, continuous emission of odorants creates problems such as diffusion and lingering of the odors in the air as well as olfactory adaptation. To solve such problems, we applied repeated hyperfine pulse ejections to emit an odorant for short periods, and developed an olfactory display that can control emission in units of 0.67msec. It has been found out that the shortest time of pulse ejection which everyone can sense is 33msec in this preliminary experiment. So we measured olfactory characteristics for 33msec of pulse ejection. "Response time" and "Duration of scent perception" were measured for pulse ejection. Further, we defined and measured the minimum ejection interval that subject could discriminate the two individually emitted pulses of scent, which we call "Separable detection threshold". It is expected that scent presentation based on these results can match visual and audio information and better enhance the sense of reality.

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This paper proposes a multimodal information presentation system that switches a modality of five senses depending on the importance of information and recognizes user's awareness for the information by measuring user's physiological data. For designing the system, we conducted an experiment to analyze relations between five senses and physiological data (blood value pulse, respiration and skin conductance). The results show that there are some stimuli affecting physiological data and others not affecting the data. Additionally, we conducted an experiment to analyze trend and individual differences of responses to stimuli of five senses. The results show that the physiological data of the subjects show a similar variation to the same stimulus. There are individual differences of level of the variation, but the physiological data of the subjects show strong responses to tactile stimuli and taste stimuli.

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A new device is proposed for generating spatial odor distribution and airflow field to present them to the users. When two fans are facing each other, winds from them collide with each other and are deflected from their original courses. By utilizing such deflected winds, the proposed device can present the user with wind coming from various locations. Moreover, by scenting the airflow coming out from the fans, various odor distributions can be also created. The results of measuring airflow velocity and odor concentration show the validity of the technique. The results of sensory tests are presented to show the potential of the proposed system.

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To integrate computers into the real world seamlessly, interaction technologies using not only visual and auditory information but also other sensory information are necessary. In this project, we focus on the expression possibilities of scent. As approaches to this concept, we propose two interactive systems named "hanahana" and "hanahanahana". In these systems, utilizes scent as input and correlates it with visual output to display the existence and variation of ambient scents, hanahana visualizes temporal variations of scent by projecting a flower image, which changes its shape, size, color, and degree of transparency. hanahanahana can also visualize a distribution of scent in an ambient air. In this paper, we describe the concept of this project, system design, implementations and users' behaviors through exhibitions.

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Gustatory information has rarely been studied in relation to computers, even though there are lots of studies on visual, auditory, haptic and olfactory information. This scarcity of research on gustatory information has several reasons. One reason is that taste sensation is based on chemical signals, whose functions have not been fully understood yet. Another reason is that taste sensation is affected by other factors, such as vision, olfaction, thermal sensation, and memories. Thus, complexity of cognition mechanism for gustatory sensation as described above makes it difficult to build up a gustatory display. Our research utilizes the complexity of cognition mechanism for gustatory sensation, in order to create a pseudo-gustatory display, which induces cross-modal integration by presenting texture and odor. "Meta Cookie" combines augmented reality technology and olfactory display technology. Merging of these two technologies creates a revolutionary interactive gustatory display. With this breakthrough combination of technology, we realize a novel gustatory display system. Pseudo-gustatory display is a novel concept to deal with gustatory information in the area of interactive techniques and open up a new horizon for computer human interaction.

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We have developed a new odor generator by using an electro-osmotic pump and a surface acoustic wave (SAW) device. This equipment can generate smells by atomizing a tiny droplet of odor sample from electro-osmotic pump, using SAW device. Since the droplets are vaporized forcibly by SAW streaming effect, even the low volatile odor can be rapidly generated. In this paper, the ability to present smell and to eliminate it rapidly as well as that to control the odor concentration was confirmed by measuring the response of QCM sensor to the low-volatile sample in addition to the sample with moderate volatility.

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Force-like sensations of fingers are evoked by vibro-tactile stimulation applied onto fingertips. This phenomenon is expected to be used for small and simple force displays, since the users wear only small vibrators on their fingertips. In this study, the properties of the force-like sensations by vibration were investigated psychophysically, and the activities of finger muscles were measured by electromyogram (EMG). As a result, it was found that extensor digitorum (communis) is more active, and force-like sensations are evoked in extending direction of fingers.

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For annotation overlay applications using augmented reality (AR), view management is widely used for improving readability and intelligibility of annotations. In order to recognize the visible portions of targets in the user's view, the positions, orientations, and shapes of the objects are used in the case of conventional view management methods. However, it is difficult for a wearable AR system to obtain the positions, orientations and shapes of targets because the target is usually moving or nonrigid. In this paper, we propose a view management method to overlay annotations for networked wearable AR in a dynamic scene. The proposed method obtains positions and shapes of targets via a network in order to estimate the visible portions of the targets in the user's view. Annotations are located by minimizing penalties related to the overlap of an annotation, occlusion of target objects, length of a line between the annotation and the target object, and distance of the annotation in successive frames. Through experiments, we have proven that a prototype system can correctly provide each user with annotations on multiple users of wearable AR systems.

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It is important to consider not only the physical and geometrical principles but also the characteristics of the human visual space in order to construct a virtual reality space such as a driving simulator. It is hypothesized that the radical optical flow image that is observed while driving distorts the human visual space. Alley experiments were conducted to validate this hypothesis quantitatively. The results of distance alley experiments indicated that the visual space under a radical flow image condition was curved and converged more toward observers than that under a stationary image condition. It was concluded that the radical optical flow narrows the human visual space.

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This paper presents a concept of energy-accumulative force display. The concept was conceived from the notion that interaction with passive objects does not require power supply hence it is theoretically possible to realize hap tic interaction with passive virtual objects without external power supply. Approaches to implement energy-accumulative system were discussed, and an approach based on torque conversion mechanism was employed. A prototype device was implemented and the simulation that confirmed behavior was done. The simulation and the experiment were compared in the research. As a result, energy accumulation was able to be confirmed on the limited condition. Result of experiment has provided clues to further investigation.

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Porous media is a material that has internal pore space to absorb liquid, such as a sponge or soil. Liquid absorbed by porous media affects the property and structure of the body, and changes haptic sensation. However, foregoing haptic system never considers structural change of porous media by liquid absorption. In this study, porous media was represented as unified particle elements that have two parameters of representing a liquid portion in the solid material at a macroscopic scale. Volume change of porous media was caused by the decrease of solid stress. Moreover elasticity change of porous media was calculated by porosity depending on volume change. The compression test of a sponge absorbing water was carried out. The results showed that the proposed model was able to represent the change of elastic modulus of the real sponge by water absorption. The system with parallel processing by GPGPU allowed a user to push a porous model of 8,000 elements with force feedback. The result of a subjective experiment showed that subjects distinguished the elastic change of the porous model depending on the absorbed liquid.

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By shaking a box with content, we can approximately estimate characteristic of the content inside through haptic sensation. Our study is focusing on implementation of haptic device that virtually realizes such interaction between human and a box. This paper discusses conceptual ideas of our approach, design of device and its control system, and implementation of a prototype system.

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