This paper proposes a method for affecting flavor perception, without changing the food itself, by applying thermal sensations to the nasal skin to simulate skin temperature changes associated with flavor perception. Recent physiological research has demonstrated that flavor perception affects skin temperature changes. Based on the knowledge and the James-Lange theory, we hypothesized that flavor perception can be modified by affecting the skin temperature. To test this theory, we developed a system which presents thermal sensations to the skin around the nose for simulating the skin's temperature response during drinking. Our user study suggested that flavor richness and aftertaste strength were significantly improved by heating up the skin in the nasal region.

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Applying constrictive force on the forearm using an air pressure cuff creates a weight sensation. To identify the source of phantom sensation, we compared the weight sensation and EMGs of the forelimb between when a wrist joint was rotated, an elbow joint was rotated, and both the joints were rotated. The result showed that participants did not felt the weight sensation when only a wrist joint was rotated. Increased activity of biceps brachii by placing pressure on the distal part of a forearm indicates that neither a mechanical constraint of a wrist joint rotation nor a constraint of forearm muscles by the cuff caused the weight sensation.

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Although kinesthetic illusions are attractive to occupational therapy professionals because they can be applied to new therapies, there are currently insufficient quantitative data for them. Toward applications of such illusions, using psychophysical experiments this paper reveals two basic properties of kinesthetic illusions: minimum stimuli for creating the illusions and the appearance conditions of vivid illusions. First, we estimated the stimulus thresholds that are required to induce illusions under several frequency, acceleration and contact force combinations. Five subjects participated in a series of psychophysical experiments in which we determined the stimulus threshold using the staircase method. When the vibration frequency condition was 70 [Hz], the vibration stimuli evoked the strongest illusion, and when the acceleration condition was 40 [m/s^2], the vibration stimuli induced the kinesthetic illusions. Second, we investigated differences in the illusion intensity (vividness) at different frequencies, accelerations and contact forces. We applied 40 kinds of different vibration stimuli to each subject and, using magnitude estimation, investigated the illusion intensity (vividness) induced by each stimulus. Our result showed that when the contact force was 0.3 [N] between vibration stimuli of 50 [Hz] and 90 [Hz], increased acceleration made the illusion intensity about two points more vivid. However, when the contact force was 1.5 [N] among all the frequency conditions, this effect was not observed.

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Most people often experience music with accompanying emotion in every day of their lives, and the emotion sometimes become critical in determining the quality of the music experience. The goal of this paper is to enrich quality of the music experience with directly facilitating the emotion. To facilitate emotion in music, this paper presents a method that simultaneously presents sound and skin sensation to the pinna. The emotion enhancement effect of the method is evaluated in user studies, and the effect was compared between the other body parts (back, arms, fingers). The findings show that the method can enhance emotion that induces sympathetic nerve activity, and pinna is one of the most effective parts to enhance the sympathetic emotion.

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We propose a novel entertainment device for flipbooks called Paranga that embodies both physical features of paper and e-book interactivity. To reproduce flipbook experience, requirements for the implementation were determined through a preliminary study to observe users' behaviors while page turning. Based on the requirements, we created a book-shaped device employing a rotatable roller mechanism with pieces of real paper. The device detects how quickly a user is turning pages and provides a user with visual, tactile, and auditory feedbacks. Using this device, we implemented several interactive flipbook installations in which the story changes depending on page-turning speed. From the results of user study, we confirmed that the page-turning interaction was regarded as similar to a paper-based book and that the installations entertained the users.

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Although electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) has been utilized in various haptic interfaces, haptic sense induced by EMS does not satisfactorily provide the full spectrum of haptic events. To enhance pseudo-haptic feedback provided via EMS, we developed pseudo-haptic display system incorporated visual and/or vibrotactile feedbacks, and examined the effect of such feedbacks on the pseudo-haptic perception via EMS. The results showed that the intensity of pseudo-haptic perception induced by EMS increases as the given voltage increases, and also revealed that the pseudo-haptic perception is enhanced by adding visual and/or vibrotactile feedbacks.

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In this paper, we propose a method to control the inherent viscosity by using redundancy of wire driven haptic display. Conventional approach that improves Fidelity and Stability of haptic display is to increase inherent viscosity or updating frequency. We focused on inherent viscosity. There will be unnecessary viscous resistance when increasing inherent viscosity at all time. It is necessary to dynamically control the inherent viscosity. We focused on the regenerative braking of DC motor. However, we can't control regenerative braking of a motor while driving. We solved it by using redundancy of wire driven haptic display.

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This paper describes a novel photo touch sensing architecture, HACHIStack. It can measure the approaching velocity of an object and predict its contact time with the surface with low latency using two optical sensing layers above the surface. We conducted two laboratory experiments to confirm that the capabilities of HACHIStack are sufficient for haptic and auditory tapping interaction. We present three applications with HACHIStack: 1) chromatic percussions (xylophone and glockenspiel) with haptic feedback; 2) no-delay haptic feedback with the sensation of tapping on various simulated materials (e.g., rubber, wood and metal); and 3) a virtual piano instrument that allows players to perform weak and strong strokes by changing the tapping velocity.

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This paper proposes a system that enables users to recognize remote objects' shapes and textures with single degree of freedom haptic feedback. The system consists of a camera platform and a handheld haptic interface. The platform is equipped with a laser range finder, which can be tilted and panned. The handheld interface can generate 1 DOF reaction force proportional to distance measured by using the laser range finder on camera platform. The laser range finder rotates synchronously according to the handheld interface's translational and rotational motion. In addition, a stereoscopic display indicates real-time stereoscopic video of remote objects captured by its two fish-eye cameras. This system enables users to recognize not only shape but also texture of remote objects by using band-pass filters. Through some experiments, the effectiveness of this system is confirmed.

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In this study, we developed a method that influences the perception of the stiffness of pinched objects by using visual feedback in which the hand image is deformed to fit the virtual object. Several studies revealed that visual feedback can control the perception of objects ' stiffness to some extent. However, most of these visual feedbacks were produced by deforming virtual objects, and few studies focused on modifying the hand's image that handled objects. This is because the deforming the hand image to fit to the dented virtual object in real time is difficult, so there was the problem of the spatial inconsistency between deformed virtual objects and superimposed hand in Mixed Reality (MR) / Augmented Reality (AR) space. In our previous works, we demonstrated that our method, which distorts the image of the user's hand, enhances the crossmodal effects of shape perception. That is, our hand image deformation method can modify the perception of stiffness, thereby inducing a stronger effect and resolving the problem of spatial inconsistency. We developed a video see-through system, which changes the hand posture and deforms the virtual object to control the stiffness feeling of the pinched object, even though the user is actually pinching a physical object with a certain value of stiffness. We conducted experiments to investigate the effectiveness of the proposed system. Our results suggested that the effect of modifying the perceived object's stiffness with our method is up to 1.6 times bigger than that with only modifying the degree of dent of virtual object.

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This paper proposes a method to present various weight in a mixed reality space without the use of mechanical devices. This is realized by changing the visual movement of the users' hand and the handled object, to evoke the pseudo-haptic effect. In order to continuously evoke the pseudo-haptic effect in the mixed reality space without the user losing ownership, or noticing the untrue position of the presented hand, we implemented a method to compensate for the difference between the position of the presented hand and the actual hand. Furthermore, we implemented the proposed method to control fatigue. By doing so, we managed to increase the number of repetition of an object lifting task the user can perform by 9.0%. This research shows that pseudo-haptic effects can be evoked in interactions that occur in the mixed reality space, and that pseudo-haptics affects not only the users' perception of weight, but also the physical performance in lifting the target object.

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The flavor of food is not just limited to the sense of taste, however it changes according to the perceived information from other perception such as from the auditory, visual, tactile sense or through individual experience or cultural background etc. Our proposed entertainment system "Gravitamine Spice" focuses on the cross modal of our perception, where we perceive the weight of food when we carry the utensil. This system consist of a fork and a seasoning called the "OMOMI". User can change the weight of the food when flaking the seasoning onto it. Through this sequence of actions, user can enjoy a different eating experience, which may change the taste of their food or the feeling of the food when they are chewing it.

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We have examined human properties of wind direction perception by measuring just-noticeable-difference (JND) in discriminating wind direction at the head. In previous experiments, however, it was indicated that slight misalignment of wind sources and individual differences among fan modules might affect JND, if we use discrete fans to provide the winds from various directions. In addition, there was a problem that the wind presented in the experiment was too narrow to reproduce natural uniform wind because we used small fans. In this study, we built an experimental system such that errors due to wind sources are reduced and both local and uniform wind can be provided. By measuring JNDs for local and uniform winds and comparing these results with that of previous experiment, we confirmed that the accuracy of wind source alignment actually affected JND. In addition, we found that the use of uniform wind covering the entire head provided larger JND than using local wind.

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In this paper, the influence which it has on "Quality of Experience" (QoE) in the haptic network game is discussed. First, the control method for the haptic network game, in which a continuous dynamic interaction such as tug of war is realized, is described. Second, the subjective and objective evaluations of QoE are performed through a "Falling guidance game" using the proposed control method. Although QoE's deteriorates according to increase of communication delay is investigated in the five-step evaluation with MOS (Mean Opinion Score), it becomes clear that the degradation of QoE is not worried for a player in the range of domestic communication delay. Moreover, in regression analysis, it is suggested that the improvement of a future haptic network game should be done by a visual sense rather than the viewpoint of haptic sense. The proposed control method is considered that it is an adequate algorithm for practical use of a haptic network game since it can realize a dynamic interaction stably also in the environment of RTT (Round Trip Time) = 400 [ms].

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Input with a touch panel interface of a small device is typically inaccurate because the touch point is occulded by te user's finger and a user cannot obtain haptic feedback. To overcome this problem, we propose a visuo-haptic system with a rear touch interface to evoke the haptic sensation without using haptic devices. For normal force, the system modifies the shape of a virtual object when the user presses the device from behind. For shearing force, the system produces a mismatch between the speed of the touch point on the rear side, which is hidden by the monitor, and a pointer, which shows a touch point displayed on the monitor. Using the system, we coducted experiments to explore the effect of visuo-haptic interaction of normal and shearing forces with a rear touch interface.The results demonstrated that more than 80% of participants perceived greater stiffness with the deformed model than the model not deformed by normal force. For shearing force, the results showed significant differences in perception based on differing strengths of visual feedback. In addition, the results showed that subtle change of the haptic sensation can be evoked with the visual feedback of deformed hand in place of a cursor.

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Furry animals or objects provide soft haptic feedback and comfortable feelings when people interact with them. With utilizing such features of furry surface, we have developed FuSA2 touch display that employs many sets of plastic fiber optics (POF) on the surface of display and realizes multi-touch interaction with furry haptic sensation. However, since the POF is fixed, the system cannot change the furry haptic sensations like softness, density, etc. In this paper, we propose a method to realize a changeable touch sensation on a furry surface covered with POF. Especially we attempt to dynamically control the softness distribution of the furry surface. We also evaluate how users can feel the haptic resolutions of our implemented system. As a result, the implemented system could let users feel various softness distributions.

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This paper describes a development of indirect force feedback system, which consists of a mouse pointer, and a 2-degree of freedom (DOF) pantograph haptic interface. The 2DOF interface consists of four-bar linkage, mouse sensor to the pointing, and computer graphics image display. The interface can display only vertical force to a user's hand. This interface separates the pointing area, which is at the fingertip, from force feedback area, which is on the ball of the thumb of the user, even though they are on one point in ordinary haptic interface. It was verified that users could feel as if they were touching virtual objects through an evaluation test.

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The tactile roughness perception of fine-texture has been investigated by using non-uniform surface materials such as polishing papers, and it has been difficult to quantitatively discuss the relationship between physical properties of surface texture and perceived roughness. To solve this issue, we developed a novel method of making a surface plate that has close-packed structure with microparticles of single size (uniform surface), and that has pseudo-close-packed structure with microparticles of two sizes (mixed surface). In this paper, we estimated subjective equality of perceived roughness of mixed surfaces in relative to the uniform surfaces, and compared the physical properties of the mixed surface and uniform surface with perceptually equal roughness. We found that perceived roughness can be partially-explained by physical distance between relatively-bigger particles, though it is not the case when the distance is much longer than diameter of the particles.

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Current Haptics technology is capable of manipulating the tactile perception of material properties. Although Haptics research is very popular in academic research, those technologies have not prevailed in general use yet. Here we report the development of an introductory haptic device called the "TECHTILE toolkit" that is capable of designing haptic experiences. We conducted usability study of our developed toolkit through conducting over fifty workshops world-wide that are for both professional researchers and general audience from elementary to collage levels. We also discuss the prospective applications of haptic devices by classifying participants' haptic experiences that were proposed during the workshop.

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Students studying physiotherapy or nursing often take a practical class which is designed to learn about hemiplegia patients through simulation exercises. The most common method that has been used is to put weights and restrains on limbs of an able-bodied subject to experience the difficulties that patients have. This paper notes the weakness of this method in the sense that patients are not only suffering from difficulty of their limb mobility, but also they are considered to be that the interaction between action and perception is not working appropriately. Therefore, authors have devised a novel simulation method using illusory kinesthesia and reflex action, and developed the experimental device that can add vibration stimulus to the tendons of leg joints at various timing and frequency. Results of experiments show that, in conditions with vibrations, greater shifts are indicated significantly in the perception of the leg position comparing with no vibrations, and the leg extends more at the knee joint during walking. Based on these results, authors discuss a new approach toward the hemiplegic gait simulation.

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Modern technology development has made the border between life and matter more ambiguous. In this research, we aim to extract and express creature-like behavior from inanimate objects. By generating a standing wave with focused ultrasound, a phenomenon known as acoustic levitation enables a physical particle to float in mid-air. The particle is trapped in the ultrasonic focal point and follows its position. We have developed a system where users can interact with the floating particle that looks and behaves as though it is a small hovering bug. We have received many reactions and opinions from attendees at exhibitions. In this paper, we describe the system overview, concept, design, implementation, and feedbacks from the exhibitions.

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