shitsukan

SHITSUKAN is a Japanese word whose literal meaning is the sense of quality, and it commonly refers to the quality of materials, surfaces, and objects. It plays important roles in value-based behavior selection, such as preference / aversion or emotional reaction toward objects.

Ho Haptics Lab focuses on the SHITSUKAN recognition related to touch, aiming to clarify its underlying human sensory processing and explore its applications in the engineering and design domain.

Material recognition based on thermal cues

Some materials feel colder to the touch than others, and we can use this thermal information for material recognition. The change in skin temperature during contact provides information about the object's thermal property (Fig. 1).

This project investigates the physical, perceptual, and cognitive processes underlying material recognition based on thermal cues. The findings from this research will advance information communication technology and robotic technology, in which thermal information is used to facilitate object recognition in virtual and remote environments (Fig. 2). The broader impact of this research is in its contribution to (1) design practice emphasizing tactile quality (触感、手触り), such as product design, textile design, and home and automobile interiors and (2) social welfare by conveying Shitsukan information to blind people using the sense of touch.

Selected references:

  • Ho, H.-N. and Jones, L.A. (2006) “Contribution of Thermal Cues to Material Discrimination and Localization,” Perception & Psychophysics, 68 (1), pp. 118-128.

  • Ho, H.-N. and Jones, L.A. (2008) “Modeling the Thermal Responses of the Skin Surface during Hand-Object Interactions,” ASME Journal of Biomechanical Engineering, 130 (2).DOI: 10.1115/1.2899574

  • Ho, H.-N. (2018) "Material recognition based on thermal cues: Mechanisms and applications" Temperature, 5(1), pp.36-55. <Open access> https://doi.org/10.1080/23328940.2017.1372042


Visual inference for warm/cold perception in natural textures

We can visually perceive warmness or coldness without actual touches. This capacity is often attributed to the prevailing color-temperature association, an established design norm that permeates our daily lives through consumer products, home decor, and art. This project investigates how much the color information can predict our visual thermal perception and what the diagnostic images features are for this prediction.

This work is a collaboration with NTT CS Labs, Kyoto Univeristy, Toyohashi University of Technology and the University of Electro-Communications, and is partially supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas (2015-2019) by MEXT “Understanding human recognition of material properties for innovation in SHITSUKAN science and technology”