This study investigated the use of the deformation of the fingertips of a virtual hand to enhance depth perception during freehand interaction in a virtual reality (VR). Artificial fingertip deformation may generate mapping of real hand position and pseudo-haptics, improving UI usability. We conducted two experiments focusing on depth manipulation in both pointing and steering tasks. Our results revealed that changes in fingertip shape reduced operation time in pointing tasks and improved accuracy in steering tasks. Additionally, we conducted subjective evaluation surveys for both experiments, which showed improvements in pseudo-haptics, spatial perception, and user experience. Based on these results, we propose several applications and demonstrate that fingertip deformations in virtual hands can contribute to better 3D UI design.

Emotional dimensions significantly impact user experience (UX) and are essential in assessing interactions in entertainment systems. However, relying solely on subjective post-event indicators fails to capture dynamic emotional changes during the system experience. Kawashima and Watanabe introduced the "ah-aloud" method, enabling real-time emotion observation by having participants vocalize "ah" during system experiences. However, this method remains conceptual and preliminary, lacking in specific experimental procedures, analysis methods, and utilization guidelines. Our study delineates the requirements for practical "ah-aloud" application and validates its potential for game experience assessment. Consequently, the "ah-aloud" method demonstrates the potential for observing time-series emotional changes during gameplay. Based on these findings, we deliberated its utility for system evaluation and reliability as an evaluation experiment.

The challenges of altruism in online communication have become apparent owing to factors such as camera on/off choices and the reduced sense of presence caused by the physical absence of interlocutors. To address this issue, it is important to instill a sense of being "observed" by the interlocutors. Using experimental economic games, we investigated whether altruistic behavior can be enhanced by inducing consciousness of being observed during a game. Significant differences were noted when participants were presented with pre-recorded videos when under observation. These results highlight the notion that, even in situations where others are not physically present, fostering the belief of being observed can facilitate altruistic behavior.

Mental-imagery-based brain-computer interfaces (MI-BCI) control external devices using specific thoughts or mental imagery. MI-BCIs are promising for many applications, but because they lack reliability, they are rarely used outside laboratories. Therefore, user training is critical for controlling an MI-BCI, and users must stably be able to generate specific EEG patterns. However, optimal training methods for acquiring this ability are still being investigated. Onomatopoeias are sensory expressions that symbolically describe sounds, scenes, and feelings. A multimodal approach for training with visual and auditory imagery using onomatopoeias was used to investigate its effects on how user perform.

Video games are utilized in some studies for evaluation experiments and demonstrations. However, because commercial video games cannot be edited, optimizing them for specific experiments is challenging. Thus, researchers may have to develop their own video games individually, which requires effort and impedes the comparison of their study with other similar studies. To overcome these limitations, in this study, we propose a user-friendly "Open Video Game Library" that can be used by researchers for experiments. We conducted a survey of previous studies and designed video games to meet researcher needs. The library features characteristics such as GUI-based parameter editing, play log output, open-source availability, and support for operation on multiple devices, with the aim of becoming the de facto standard for video games used for research purposes.

In this study, using a novel method for haptic presentation based on pseudo-haptics, the perceived stiffness was visually altered by changing the fingertips shape of a virtual hand, as users engaged with objects in a VR environment. While past approaches have primarily focused on instigating such sensations through object deformation, we focused on how an individual’s fingertips deform upon making contact with an object. In this study, we investigated pseudo-haptics based on the deformation of the fingertips of a virtual hand. In Experiment 1, we determined how the shape deformation of a virtual hand’s fingertip affected the sense of body ownership. The experiment determined that the maximum change in the fingertip width should be 2.25 times. In Experiment 2, subjects touched a virtual object in the VR space and evaluated the perception of the stiffness of the virtual object. The results confirmed that when the deformation of the fingertip shape of the virtual hand was small, the object was perceived as hard, whereas when it was large, the object was perceived as soft. These results indicated that a haptic presentation is possible without using a haptic device that restricts user movement, which will users could broaden the range of natural interactions in VR spaces.

Many haptic displays that provide haptic feedback to users have been proposed;however, differences in experimental environments make comparisons of displays difficult. Therefore, we categorized the characteristics of feedback based on existing research, and developed a common experience sample that includes virtual objects necessary for the expression of each characteristic. Additionally, we will study the methods of evaluating displays using the proposed sample, and aim at comparative evaluation of multiple displays.

TeleStick is a system that records and replicates tactile experience and visual information using common types of camera and video monitor environment. TeleStick uses a stick-type device with a tactile microphone attached to a camera so that it is consistently visible in the video, and records video and with tactile and audio information using stereo 2ch. The users can feel as if they were in the video as they watch it while holding a stick-type device with a speaker and a vibrator.

We introduce new ways of using a 3D printer head as a 3-axis robotic manipulator to enable advanced fabrication and usage such as assembling separately printed parts, breaking support materials and actuating printed objects on a build-plate. To achieve these manipulations, we customize a low-cost fused deposition modeling (FDM) 3D printer that can attach/detach printed end-effectors which change the function of the 3D printer head (e.g. grab, break, and rotate printed objects). These techniques afford the 3D printer to fabricate and assemble complete kinetic objects such as automatons without manual processing (i.e. removing support materials and assembling objects). We conclude that a small modification to a standard 3D printer, allows us to fabricate and assemble objects without human intervention.

A block machine has been proposed as effective systems to support attack practice in volleyball. A method for manipulating the system by tablet operation has been established, and the use of the system has been shown to improve practice effectiveness. However, due to the requirement of manual operation, it has been reported that the efficiency of practice decreases due to the error between the block position and the attack position. Therefore, in order to operate the block machine automatically, we propose a method to acquire the player position from monocular video in real time and predict the attack position.

This paper presents a system that consists of three robots to imitate the motion of top volleyball blockers. In a volleyball match, in order to score by spiking, it is essential to improve the spike decision rate of each spiker. To increase the spike decision rates, iterative spiking training with actual blockers is required. Therefore, in this study, a block machine system was developed that can be continuously used in an actual practice field to improve attack practice. In order to achieve the required operating speed and mechanical strength each robot has five degrees of freedom. This robot performs high speed movement on 9 m rails that are arranged in parallel with the volleyball net. In addition, an application with a graphical user interface to enable a coach to manipulate these robots was developed. It enables the coach to control block motions and change the parameters such as the robots' positions and operation timing. Through practical use in the practice field, the effectiveness of this system was confirmed.

Due to the popularization of personal 3D printing, individuals without a technical background have opportunities to manipulate 3D data. However, creating 3D data needs technical knowledge and it is difficult for beginners. Especially when we make practical tools for personal belongings or furniture with a 3D printer, it is difficult because of being necessary to design such tools to fit in with objects. In this paper, we propose WireMolding, a 3D modeling approach for practical personal 3D printing with which sketches can be created to construct a 3D model from the bi-dimensional shape of a physical wire mold. We developed a prototype system and demonstrated the usefulness of this concept at the example of use cases.

Even high-performance general purpose processors are not sufficient for speedy motion estimation (ME), though they support some SIMD instructions for ME. In this paper, we propose a SIMD-based general-purpose-oriented datapath with efficient operation structure for ME. The several additional components have been added to a comven-tional datapath base for ME acceleration. The results of its logic design and chip layout design showed the proposed datapath accelerates motion estimation speed by 3.99-5.06 times on average in the diamond, SUC and non-dense patterns compared to previous method with only 2.6% hardware area increase.

Referring to documents is common when making things, but there is a difficulty caused by the gap between a written description and the actual context of making. For example, when cooking following a recipe, people may lose their current position in the recipe, misunderstand the required amount of ingredients because of complicated measuring units, or skip steps by mistake. We address these problems by selecting cooking as our domain. Our proposed cooking support system, MimiCook, embodies a recipe in a real kitchen counter and directly navigates a user. The system consists of a computer, a depth camera, a projector, and a scaling device. It displays step-by-step instructions directly onto the utensils and ingredients, and controls the guidance display in accordance with the user's situations. The integrated scaling device also helps users to avoid mistakes with measuring units. Results of our user study shows participants found it easier to cook with the system and even subjects who had never cooked the assigned recipe did not make any mistakes.

This paper presents a verbally-based cognitive task for elderly with mild cognitive impairment. As designed with conscious of daily conversation, the task is done by oral answering some questionnaire. An elderly firstly talks about the topics of favorite season, travel, gourmet, and daily life, and then he/she does three cognitive tasks of reminiscence task, category recall, and working memory task. With the use of the functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), which can measure cerebral blood flow activation non-invasively, we had collected 42 CHs fNIRS signals on frontal and right and left temporal areas from 22 elderly participants (7 males and 15 females between ages of 64 to 89) during cognitive tests in a specialized medical institute. All participates are classified into three clinical groups: elderly individuals with cognitively normal controls (CN), patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and mild Alzheimer's disease (AD). Toward personalized cognitive training, we report a task effect measurement by the statistical tests of fNIRS signals.