牛山奎悟 | Keigo Ushiyama

Keigo Ushiyama

(pronunciation: Keigo = /KAY-go/)

I am a postdoc (JSPS PD) & a project researcher at Amemiya Lab, the University of Tokyo.

*Update: I will be on the academic job market in 2027, exploring faculty and research opportunities in HCI and haptics. I would be happy to connect about potential opportunities.
2027年より、大学・研究機関でのポジションを探す予定です。募集情報や機会がありましたら、ぜひお声がけください。

Experiences:

2025.4 ~ a postdoc (JSPS PD)

2025.3 I received a Ph.D. (Eng.) from the University of Electro-Communications, advised by Prof. Hiroyuki Kajimoto.

2023.12 ~ 2024.10: Research Assistant at Sony CSL, advised by Dr. Shunichi Kasahara

2022.9 ~ 2023.4: visiting PhD at HCILab, University of Chicago

2022.4 ~ 2025.3: a research fellow (JSPS DC1)

Primary Email: ushiyama[at]vr.u-tokyo.ac.jp

(Second Email: keigo.ushiyama[at]gmail.com)

[Lab Page | Curriculum Vitae]

Research Interests

I am interested in how people perceive their bodies and environments, and how we can engineer methods to intervene in and modulate these perceptions, thereby expanding the range of human experience beyond the physical constraints of the body and environment. My current research centers on kinesthetic illusions. The kinesthetic sensation is one of the crucial sensations in the human body and is used for perceiving limb movement and positions. By leveraging the illusion of the kinesthetic sensation, I have proposed creating experiences using not only body illusions but also illusions of handheld objects, such as heaviness, resistance, and shape.

My Ph.D. Thesis

Title: Haptic Interactions using Vibration-induced Kinesthetic Illusions
(Japanese title: 振動刺激による運動錯覚を用いた触覚インタラクションの研究)

Presentation slides, Paper

Presentation video (in Japanese): https://youtu.be/XawB-nJ_QQI

Publications

K. Ushiyama and H. Kajimoto, 2025, "Kinesthetic Weight Modulation: The Effects of Whole-Arm Tendon Vibration on the Perceived Heaviness," in IEEE Transactions on Haptics, vol. 18, no. 4 [Web][PDF]

Keigo Ushiyama and Pedro Lopes. 2023. FeetThrough: Electrotactile Foot Interface that Preserves Real-World Sensations. In Proceedings of the 36th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST '23) [Web]

Eifu Narita, Shota Nakayama, Mitsuki Manabe, Keigo Ushiyama, Satoshi Tanaka, Izumi Mizoguchi, Hiroyuki Kajimoto, "Manipulation of Body Sway Interpretation through Kinesthetic Illusion Induced by Ankles Vibration", IEEE World Haptics Conference 2023, Delft, Netherlands.[pdf]

Narita, Eifu, Keigo Ushiyama, Izumi Mizoguchi, and Hiroyuki Kajimoto. "Presentation of Body Sway Sensation Considering the Distinction Between Self-Motion and Environmental Motion Induced by Alternating Vibrations to Antagonistic Tendons in the Ankles." IEEE Access, 2025 [Web]

Keigo Ushiyama, Akifumi Takahashi, and Hiroyuki Kajimoto, “Increasing Perceived Weight and Resistance by Applying Vibration to Tendons during Active Arm Movements”, Eurohaptics 2022, Hamburg, Germany [Web].

Keigo Ushiyama, Akifumi Takahashi, and Hiroyuki Kajimoto, “Modulation of a Hand-held Object’s Property through Proprioceptive Stimulation during Active Arm Movement,” Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI, Yokohama, Japan (Online).

[Web]

Keigo Ushiyama, Satoshi Tanaka, Akifumi Takahashi, and Hiroyuki Kajimoto. “Reinforcement of Kinesthetic Illusion by Simultaneous Multi-Point Vibratory Stimulation.” SIGGRAPH Asia 2019 Posters, Brisbane, Australia

[Web]

Keigo Ushiyama, Satoshi Tanaka, Akifumi Takahashi, and Hiroyuki Kajimoto. “The Effects of Simultaneous Multi-Point Vibratory Stimulation on Kinesthetic Illusion.” Eurohaptics 2020, Leiden, Netherlands

[Web]

Keigo Ushiyama, Satoshi Tanaka, Masahiro Miyakami, and Hiroyuki Kajimoto. “ViBaR: VR Platform Using Kinesthetic Illusions to Enhance Movement Experience.” SIGGRAPH 2020 Emerging Technologies, New York, NY, USA (Online)

[Web]

(more research: publications )

Exhibitions

Neighbor Invader (IVRC2020, a VR contest in Japan)

Neighbor Invader is a VR experience developed for a VR contest in Japan (IVRC). I was in charge of designing and developing the application. Neighbor Invader is inspired by concepts of adopting humans as actuators, such as Haptic Turk and Turk Deck. This project aims to create experiences with a few amounts of hardware and design human interactions in a house based on the COVID-19 situation. In this experience, a human is actuated to present sound and haptic feedback through a smartphone as the experience proceeds.

[Web (in japanese)]

Side projects

DIY Electromyography (2020)

I created a circuit using ESP32 for Electromyography. This simple circuit has two channels to measure muscle activities (there were some points I need to improve, though...).

[Video]

DIY Audio Amplifers for tendon vibration (2024~)

I'm creating a custom audio board (microcontroller + DAC + d-class amplifiers).

News

2026.06 I gave a talk about kinesthetic illusions at "Technical Investigation Committee on Actuator Technologies for Next-Generation Haptic Interaction" (次世代力触覚インタラクション委員会) in Japanene!

2026.03 I gave a talk about kinesthetic illusions at NSI (神経刺激インタフェース研究会) ! ( Tohoku Univ., Japan)

2025.07 I was selected as a Best Reviwer at IEEE World Haptics Conference!

2024.03 visited Cybernetic Humanity lab at OIST, Okinawa for a week

2023.12 started RA at Sony CSL (team PI: Shunichi Kasahara)

2023.11 participated in "Haptics Workshop" at Tsukuba University and enjoyed great demos

2023.11 presented "FeetThrough" at UIST 2023 in San Francisco