論文

Touch plays an essential role in communicating emotions and intensifying interpersonal communication[4]. A lot of research focuses on how to create or improve haptic interfaces looking into challenges and possibilities that the haptic technology can offer[30]. The objective of this research is to investigate whether people can share subjective feelings through simple vibrotactile feedback. In an initial experiment, we used the TECHTILE toolkit[19] to record 28 vibration sample sets for 4 different emotions (joy, anger, sadness, relaxation). We then replayed the vibrations to test how well they could be recognized. The results support the hypothesis that people can use vibration feedback as a medium for expressing specific subjective feelings. It also indicates some universalities in affective vibrotactile stimuli that even strangers with little to no knowledge about the senders could recognize the emotional meanings.

In this paper, we introduce “Kinder BURU BURU cushion” a vibrotactile cushion that is used during storytelling time to grab the attention of children to help them to focus on the story. We conducted field tests using our system, which confirmed that children were more interested in a story when using our system compared to normal storytelling. For this research, we collaborated with a printing company and a picture book company, designed our system based on user studies at a kid’s space, and conducted empirical field experiments.

As an alternative to enhance user's experience in VR contents, we propose KABUTO, a head mounted haptic display designed to induce upper-body movement by the application of kinesthetic feedback to the head. KABUTO can provide impact and resistance by using flywheels and brakes in response to various head movements, as extensive head movements lead to dynamic movement throughout the upper body. We have also designed an application which enables the user to become a rhinoceros beetle.The user can feel the weight of the swinging horn or the impact of the horn flinging object. In the demonstration of it, we observed that KABUTO makes users move their upper body aggressively.

Tactile sensation contributes to sensory-motor control and facilitates skillful manipulation of objects. If the tactile sensation can be shared between two partners, the state of each partner can be partially observed by the other, and the possibilities for cooperative work may be expanded. Recently, examples of utilizing tactile sensation in human-robot cooperative work have been proposed. For cooperative work between people, it is necessary to investigate the basic ability of humans to identify other person's motions and operations by tactile presentation. To avoid hindering work performed with the hands and fingertips, the sensation must be presented elsewhere. This study investigates the possibility of identifying other person's tool operations by presenting tactile information induced on his/her finger with a wearable vibrator on the arm. A wearable skin vibration sensor was employed to acquire tactile information during an experiment in which five different tool operations were tested. This sensor measures skin vibration while directly touching the target. We proposed a non-linear signal processing function to adjust the intensity of the skin vibration to within the range of human sensitivity for tactile presentation. We compared vibrotactile stimulation between the non-linear and linear corrections, and then conducted experiments on identifying operations. The results showed that the non-linear correction increased small signals and enhanced the variance of large signals, and that operations were significantly identified by tactile presentation to the arm.

This research is an exploratory work aimed at evaluating the ability of across-body vibration patterns to communicate emotions. We developed an affective haptic chair that allows seated users to feel tactile sensation around the upper and lower back, bottom, and leg area. We tested the system in two studies. The first study used 25 user-generated haptic patterns to represent five basic emotions, and suggested that across-body haptic patterns are effective in conveying emotions. In the second study, we tested four basic directional patterns identified in study 1 and validated the effect of up, down, left, and right movement on users' emotional states. We observed an improvement in valence value from "up" movement, while the "down" movement was expressed to induce a sense of calmness in users. These findings could be useful in designing future affective furniture.

In stage performances, an invisible wall in front of the stage often weakens the connections between the audience and performers. To amplify this performative connection, we present the concept "Boiling Mind". Our design concept is based on streaming sensor data related to heart and electrodermal activities from audience members and integrating this data into staging elements, such as visual projections, music, and lighting. Thus, the internal states of the audience directly influence the staging. Artists can have a more direct perception of the inner reactions of audience members and can create physical expressions in response to them. In this paper, we present the wearable sensing system as well as design considerations of mapping heart and electrodermal activity to changes in the staging elements. We evaluated our design and setup over three live performances.

In this paper, we explore the use of a real-time speech visualization overlay to help native English speakers (NES) reflect on their speech speed and allow them to understand how English as a Foreign Language speakers (EFLS) perceive their speech. Our visual system generates a sequence of bubbles based on the speaking speed overlaid close to the user's mouth; the faster the speaking speed, the denser the bubble sequence, and vice versa. The results suggest that the presence of the speech visualization helps NES to understand their speech speed, and subsequently, it helps EFLS to feel comfortable speaking during the online group discussion.

In this research, we aimed to expand humans' physical ability by reshaping natural physicalities that allow body transformation. By modifying the existing body parts, we proposed a system that changed humans' cognition of reality and their environment, and presented its use case. We conducted a study that explored the use of actions: (1) opening and closing of the pinnas (ears) and (2) pulling of the nose to change humans' body schema and humans' cognition of the environment. The results showed that people were able to perceive changes in the position of the pinnas in three different conditions (100% Open, 50% Open, 0% Open) with high accuracy. We also observed that opening and closing the pinnas could alter the cognition of the sound field, as opposed to the normal ears. Furthermore, we found that the feeling of a nose is extending was felt more by using the system. This finding implied that the modified body schema improved our recognition of the odor source and its position.