Tomoharu Ishikawa

Online Shopping and Individual Consumer Adaptation: The Relationship Between Fabric-Identification Ability and Prior Knowledge

This chapter describes the adaptation of individual consumers with regard to shopping for clothes online. Consumers who shop online are sometimes disappointed if the textural and tactile properties of purchased clothing differ from their expectations. However, some observers can determine cloth quality quite well from an image. Understanding how such observers identify fabric is critical for developing a technology for presenting cloth information that is adaptable for each observer. To accomplish this, we performed a fabric-identification experiment in which we asked 18 observers to distinguish pieces of cloth through blind tactile perception while viewing cloth images on a display. We also conducted a questionnaire survey to quantify each observer’s knowledge of fabrics, experience, and interest by using polar questions and visual analog scales (VASs). From these results, the relationship between fabric-identification ability and prior knowledge was investigated for each observer.

Imaging Stokes polarimeter by dual rotating retarder and analyzer and its application of evaluation of Japanese lacquer

Lacquer crafts are distributed over Southeast Asia from the East Asia such as China and Korea, Vietnam, Myanmar including Japan. Especially, a Japanese lacquer is well-known traditional crafts. Its color is jet black but people feel different texture because it is made by complicated and multi step manufacturing process such as coating and polishing with different materials. In this report, we focus polarization properties of surface structures on black Japanese lacquer. All states of polarization can be expressed Stokes parameters, which are consisted on four elements as s0 to s3. These parameters are effective for the evaluation of the state of polarization. The polarization information of surface structure of Japanese lacquer can be visualized by using an imaging Stokes polarimeter by dual rotating retarder and analyzer. It is possible to evaluate surface character by comparing the degree of polarization. It is effective to evaluate the surface by using the polarization information.

Effects of changes in the depth feeling of the visual target on the simultaneity perception of an auditory-visual event

In this study, we investigated the simultaneity perception between a visual stimulus and its associated sound. We carried out experiments of an auditory-visual stimulus presentation using an audio-video clip of a man beating a drum on a road. The visual stimulus had a feeling of depth with a perspective view of the road. There were four kinds of distance between the visual target of a man beating a drum and the video camera to capture the target of 5, 10, 20, and 40m, and we called these distances as “the presentation distances.” We presented the auditory-visual stimuli to experimental subjects at each presentation distance of 5, 10, 20, and40 m under various conditions, where we varied the feeling of depth of the visual stimulus from -40% to 40% and the time delay between the auditory and visual stimulus from -8F to 8F (1F = 1/30s). We analyzed the experimental results and calculated the point of subjective simultaneity (PSS) of the auditory-visual event. As a result, the PSS intended to increase as the ...

Investigations and analysis of assessment word for sound quality attaching importance to high‐order sensation

The standpoint of our research is to evaluate subjectively the sound quality of sound‐reproducing systems by evaluating deep emotions which are brought by the sounds of music and speech. In evaluating sound qualities, assessment words that express the emotive meanings which have arisen in an evaluator’s mind are used. The importance of sound reproduction is the transmission of ‘‘mind’’ that a musician wants to send. Therefore the assessment words which can represent the high‐order sensations of the sender need to be obtained. Not only conventional assessment words but also assessment words which represent high‐order sensation have been investigated and then analyzed. The method is as follows, (1) 35 representative assessment words by the KJ method from 1322 assessment words which were obtained by surveying audio publications over the past three years were obtained. (2) Psychological distances among 35 representative assessment words have been analyzed by the MDS method, and four clusters by hierarchical c...