Papers - Minamizawa, Kouta

Design of Altered Cognition with Reshaped Bodies

K Shirota, M Uju, Y Chandra, E Czech, R Peiris, K Minamizawa

Proceedings of the Augmented Humans International Conference, 1-10 (ACM International Conference Proceeding Series)   2020.03

ISSN  9781450376037

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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.

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Design of Altered Cognition with Reshaped Bodies

K Shirota, M Uju, Y Chandra, E Czech, R Peiris, K Minamizawa

Proceedings of the Augmented Humans International Conference, 1-10 (ACM International Conference Proceeding Series)   2020.03

ISSN  9781450376037

　View Summary

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.

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Discrimination of prediction models between cold-heat and deficiency-excess patterns

Maeda-Minami Ayako, Yoshino Tetsuhiro, Katayama Kotoe, Horiba Yuko, Hikiami Hiroaki, Shimada Yutaka, Namiki Takao, Tahara Eiichi, Minamizawa Kiyoshi, Muramatsu Shinichi, Yamaguchi Rui, Imoto Seiya, Miyano Satoru, Mima Hideki, Mimura Masaru, Nakamura Tomonori, Watanabe Kenji

COMPLEMENTARY THERAPIES IN MEDICINE 49 2020.03

ISSN  0965-2299

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Discrimination of prediction models between cold-heat and deficiency-excess patterns

Maeda-Minami Ayako, Yoshino Tetsuhiro, Katayama Kotoe, Horiba Yuko, Hikiami Hiroaki, Shimada Yutaka, Namiki Takao, Tahara Eiichi, Minamizawa Kiyoshi, Muramatsu Shinichi, Yamaguchi Rui, Imoto Seiya, Miyano Satoru, Mima Hideki, Mimura Masaru, Nakamura Tomonori, Watanabe Kenji

COMPLEMENTARY THERAPIES IN MEDICINE 49 2020.03

ISSN  0965-2299

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Preliminary Investigation of Across-Body Vibrotactile Pattern for the Design of Affective Furniture

Y Chandra, B Tag, RL Peiris, K Minamizawa

2020 IEEE Haptics Symposium (HAPTICS), 671-676 (IEEE Haptics Symposium, HAPTICS)  2020-March   671 - 676 2020.03

ISSN  9781728102344

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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.

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Preliminary Investigation of Across-Body Vibrotactile Pattern for the Design of Affective Furniture

Y Chandra, B Tag, RL Peiris, K Minamizawa

2020 IEEE Haptics Symposium (HAPTICS), 671-676 (IEEE Haptics Symposium, HAPTICS)  2020-March   671 - 676 2020.03

ISSN  9781728102344

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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.

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Control device and control method

H Kim, S Kasahara, M Inami, K Minamizawa, Y Sugiura, Y Mizushina

US Patent 10,579,109  2020

Re-association of Body Parts: Illusory Ownership of a Virtual Arm Associated with the Contralateral Real Finger by Visuo-motor Synchrony

R Kondo, Y Tani, M Sugimoto, K Minamizawa, M Inami, M Kitazaki

Frontiers in Robotics and AI 7, 26 (Frontiers in Robotics and AI)  7 2020

ISSN  2296-9144

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Illusory ownership can be induced in a virtual body by visuo-motor synchrony. Our aim was to test the possibility of a re-association of the right thumb with a virtual left arm and express the illusory body ownership of the re-associated arm through a synchronous or asynchronous movement of the body parts through action and vision. Participants felt that their right thumb was the virtual left arm more strongly in the synchronous condition than in the asynchronous one, and the feeling of ownership of the virtual arm was also stronger in the synchronous condition. We did not find a significant difference in the startle responses to a sudden knife appearance to the virtual arm between the two synchrony conditions, as there was no proprioceptive drift of the thumb. These results suggest that a re-association of the right thumb with the virtual left arm could be induced by visuo-motor synchronization; however, it may be weaker than the natural association.

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Edge Vibration Improves Ability to Discriminate Roughness Difference of Adjoining Areas

Y Ban, Y Ujitoko, K Minamizawa

IEEE Transactions on Haptics (IEEE Transactions on Haptics)  13 ( 1 ) 211 - 218 2020

ISSN  19391412

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Researchers have studied the discrimination thresholds between different vibrotactile signals under various conditions. Humans cannot recognize slight differences in vibrotactile stimuli that are smaller than the perception threshold. This is a constraint in the vibrotactile design used in practical applications. This article focuses on the vibrational feedback at the 'edge' between multiple areas, while previous studies have not considered this. We assume that the edge vibration not only emphasizes the presence of the edge itself, but also has an effect on the vibrotactile perception of the adjoining areas. Specifically, we hypothesize that the edge vibration would modify the user's ability to discriminate vibrotactile differences between adjoining areas. We conducted a user study to test this hypothesis. As a result, we found that presenting edge vibrations at the boundaries between adjacent textures makes it easier to discriminate the frequency and amplitude differences of the vibrations of those uneven textures. This article could increase the flexibility of vibrotactile design, and vibrotactile designers could use these results to design a wider variety of vibrations for adjacent areas.

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Design of Interactive Audio-Visual-Tactile Media "Public Booth for Vibrotactile Communication" for Telecommunication with Heightened Presence

Hayakawa Hirohiko, Owaki Richi, Ishikawa Takuya, Minamizawa Kouta, Tanaka Yoshihiro, Komazaki Kakagu, Kamamoto Yutaka, Watanabe Junji

Transactions of the Virtual Reality Society of Japan (THE VIRTUAL REALITY SOCIETY OF JAPAN)  25 ( 4 ) 412 - 421 2020

ISSN  1344-011X

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<p>This paper presents "Public Booth for Vibrotactile Communication", an interactive audio-visual-haptic media that allows us to feel the vibrations of the other people who share the same desk and face each other. The purpose of this research is to observe what kind of behavior people take when a higher presence is presented by tactile sensation in telecommunication. As the interface, we designed a pair of frames consisting of a curved screen to show the upper body and the hand of a life-size person, a haptic system to share tactile sensation, and a sound system. By installing the frames in multiple remote places and transmitting audio-visual-tactile sensation interactively, we observed what kind of behavior faced people do and what kind of communication was created between them. As a result, various haptic plays were created. Since the tendency in the development of haptic communication observed in the developmental phase of infants was also observed through this approach, it was clarified that the heightened presence provided by haptics for telecommunication contributes to the promotion of friendship.</p>

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Control device, robot control method, and robot control system

CL Fernando, S Tachi, G Sano, K Minamizawa

US Patent App. 16/684,625  2020

Design of Interactive Audio-Visual-Tactile Media "Public Booth for Vibrotactile Communication" for Telecommunication with Heightened Presence

Hayakawa Hirohiko, Owaki Richi, Ishikawa Takuya, Minamizawa Kouta, Tanaka Yoshihiro, Komazaki Kakagu, Kamamoto Yutaka, Watanabe Junji

Transactions of the Virtual Reality Society of Japan (THE VIRTUAL REALITY SOCIETY OF JAPAN)  25 ( 4 ) 412 - 421 2020

ISSN  1344-011X

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<p>This paper presents "Public Booth for Vibrotactile Communication", an interactive audio-visual-haptic media that allows us to feel the vibrations of the other people who share the same desk and face each other. The purpose of this research is to observe what kind of behavior people take when a higher presence is presented by tactile sensation in telecommunication. As the interface, we designed a pair of frames consisting of a curved screen to show the upper body and the hand of a life-size person, a haptic system to share tactile sensation, and a sound system. By installing the frames in multiple remote places and transmitting audio-visual-tactile sensation interactively, we observed what kind of behavior faced people do and what kind of communication was created between them. As a result, various haptic plays were created. Since the tendency in the development of haptic communication observed in the developmental phase of infants was also observed through this approach, it was clarified that the heightened presence provided by haptics for telecommunication contributes to the promotion of friendship.</p>

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Operation Discrimination Using Skin Vibration:-Study on the Characteristics of Vibration and the Presentation Position-

SUGIURA Shimpei, KATAGIRI Takumi, TANAKA Yoshihiro, MINAMIZAWA Kouta, WATANABE Junji

The Proceedings of JSME annual Conference on Robotics and Mechatronics (Robomec) (The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers)  2020 ( 0 ) 2P1 - M15 2020

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<p>We are exploring new applications using haptic sharing. If we were able to capture and perceive the sensations and movements of others into ourselves, we could conduct cooperative works with others on the basis of shared haptic perception. We demonstrated human-robot cooperation by sending human haptic information during the task to the robot. Regarding human-human cooperation, humans need to perceive haptic information and identify the other's state on the task. Therefore, in this paper, the identification of different tool operations by presenting vibrotactile stimulation that reproduces the skin vibration collected during each operation was tested. Performance of the identification was investigated on different positions to present vibrotactile stimulation and on the multi inputs of vibrotactile stimulation.</p>

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皮膚振動を用いた作業識別 一振動の特徴と提示部位に関する検討一

杉浦慎平， 片桐拓海， 田中由浩， 南澤孝太， 渡邊淳司

ロボティクス・メカトロニクス講演会講演概要集 2020, 2P1-M15  2020

Signal processing apparatus and signal processing method

H Kim, M Yoshino, M Inami, K Minamizawa, Y Sugiura, Y Mizushina, ...

US Patent 10,705,620  2020

Signal processing apparatus and signal processing method

H Kim, M Yoshino, M Inami, K Minamizawa, Y Sugiura, S Kasahara

US Patent 10,674,304  2020

Shared Haptic Perception for Human-Robot Collaboration

K Katayama, M Pozzi, Y Tanaka, K Minamizawa, D Prattichizzo

International Conference on Human Haptic Sensing and Touch Enabled Computer … (Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics))  12272 LNCS   536 - 544 2020

ISSN  9783030581466

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To obtain a fluent human-robot collaboration, reciprocal awareness is fundamental. In this paper, we propose to achieve it by creating a haptic connection between the human operator and the collaborative robot. Data coming from a wearable skin vibration sensor are used by the robot to recognize human actions, and vibrotactile signals are used to inform the human about the correct recognition of her/his actions. It is shown that the proposed communication paradigm, based on shared haptic perception, allows to improve cycle time performance in a complex human-robot collaborative task.

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SF の射程距離 (第 5 回) 身体という 「距離」 を超える

南澤孝太

SF マガジン= SF magazine 61 (4), 240-250  2020

Sensation imparting device, robot control system, and robot control method

CL Fernando, S Tachi, G Sano, K Minamizawa

US Patent App. 16/684,624  2020

Interest Arousal by Haptic Feedback During a Storytelling for Kindergarten Children

M Shibasaki, Y Kamiyama, E Czech, K Obata, Y Wakamoto, K Kishi, ...

International Conference on Human Haptic Sensing and Touch Enabled Computer … (Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics))  12272 LNCS   518 - 526 2020

ISSN  9783030581466

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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.

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