Naoko Sano

A basic research on expression of loudness and orientation of sound source in soundscape by onomatopoeia on pictures

When soundscape is described with words under common acoustic environment, it is usual that the name of the sound source that indicates their category or species is noted. Generally, such kind of description cannot express loudness and orientation of sound source. However, the information of loudness and orientation of the sound source is important, so it is necessary to note them easily at a time. In the present research, it is investigated whether description of soundscape using onomatopoeia on pictures to express loudness and orientation of sound sources is effective or not. Two psychological experiments are carried out to reveal the availability of this description method. Results show that onomatopoeia can present the type of source, and that it can simultaneously express variety of loudness of sound source and noise. It is suggested that the size and number of onomatopoeia described on pictures of the place where noise exists represents loudness of sound and noise, and that the variety of size of on...

Effect of character contrast ratio of tablet PC and ambient device luminance ratio on readability in low ambient illuminance

Abstract This study examined the relationship between the ambient and surface luminances needed to obtain optimal and minimum allowable device (paper and tablet) readability in low ambient illumination environments (illuminance of less than 300 lx). In addition, the optimum and minimum allowable surface luminances were evaluated according to ambient luminance based on the tablet character contrast ratio. Experiments were conducted based on a method in which the subject directly adjusts the surface brightness of the device, and revealed that the contrast ratio does not influence the surface luminance of a tablet. In cases with a set contrast ratio of 70%, paper and tablet were found to produce different results. We propose a model for obtaining optimal and minimum allowable paper and tablet surface luminances in low ambient illuminance environments. The optimal and minimal allowable surface luminances of a tablet are respectively higher and lower than the ambient luminance. In the case of paper, if a surface luminance of at least 27 cd/m2 can be obtained, the surface luminance can be lower than the ambient luminance.

A research on understanding of piano players’ control of performance behavior in brushing up processes of music piece using Near-infrared spectroscopy

In this paper, we are studying about the method in which we could catch the relationship between players’ perception of sonic field environment and the following control of playing behavior characteristically. Based on the above way of thinking, we made some measuring experiments on some actual performances in brushing up processes, and analyzed and considered about the difference between experimental results from the view point of the perception and behavior control. Already, it has been shown that measuring the change in frontal lobe brain blood flow using Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) Brain-measuring-apparatus and comparative-analyzing the measured data was different by a variety of psychological conditions. In this paper, adopting the above method, we measured subjects’ frontal lobe brain blood flow on two actual performance of the early stage “performance of playing at sight” and the final stage “performance of automated levels” in proficiency-process. After some supplementary interviewing to sub...