Nomura Shusaku

• Professor at Nagaoka University of Technology

Existing electroencephalography (EEG) studies predominantly involve participants in stationary positions, which presents challenges in accurately capturing EEG data during physical activities due to motion-induced noise and artifacts. This study aims to assess and validate the efficacy of the Soft Dynamic Time Warping (Soft-DTW) clustering method f...

The cortisol level in fingernails can reflect the cumulative hormones produced in the body several months prior. However, previous studies have only demonstrated the cross-sectional associations of fingernail cortisol with salivary or hair cortisol, and not longitudinal changes in fingernail cortisol in situations where cortisol levels in the body...

Cortisol is an adrenal hormone, whose secretion changes in response to daily stress, or mental or physical diseases. Cortisol has thus been studied as a biomarker for psychosomatic conditions. While cortisol levels have conventionally been determined using saliva samples, hair and nail cortisol have attracted recent attention. This review investiga...

Several studies have focused on the cortisol levels in fingernail samples as a possible index of cumulative hormone production; however, the biological validity of fingernail cortisol has not been fully established. We investigated the association between cortisol levels in fingernail samples and other biological specimens, including hair and saliv...

This study aimed to validate the association between hair cortisol and 30-day integrated salivary cortisol levels. Additionally, the intra-individual stability of the hair cortisol and the association between hair cortisol and salivary cortisol in several time domains were systematically explored. Twenty-four adults (15 men and 9 women, mean age: 2...

We tested the efficacy of our developed posture-respiration feedback architecture on cardiac and peripheral autonomic nervous system activity. In this system, the posture of a user lying on a bed was regulated adaptively with the rhythm of the user’s respiration in a real-time manner. We hypothesized that such an adaptive posture intervention makes...

The present study aimed to investigate the effect of an LED lighting on endocrine and autonomic nervous system activity during sleep. In a within‐subject experimental design, participants, ten healthy male students, took a 6‐h sleep from 0:00–6:00 am in an environmentally controlled room during which they were exposed to an LED lighting of approxim...

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of odor on the heart rate (HR) and salivary cortisol levels during sleep at home. Twenty male students (aged 20.9 ± 0.74 years) participated in the study and were exposed to three different odorants (apple, cedar wood, and citrus ginger) or a scentless control sample each night in their home enviro...

This study was undertaken to quantify heart rate dynamics and interactions during sequential use of a postural-respiration feedback regulation control system. The bent shape of the human back makes it easier to exhale air from the lungs, but challenging to inhale. On the other hand, when a human being leans over backwards, it becomes difficult to e...

Post‐lunch sleepiness and deterioration in performance, or ‘post‐lunch dip’, is considered a part of the biological rhythm. A short nap is a promising countermeasure to the post‐lunch dip. Compared to the extensive studies on the effects of a short nap, there is limited research on the physiological impact of a relatively long nap such as 60 min or...

Although cortisol levels in fingernails may reflect the hormone's long-term cumulative production, a standard measuring procedure has not yet been established. In this study, we investigated the effects of ground-fingernail grain size and cortisol extraction time on the measurement of fingernail cortisol. Fourteen healthy males provided fingernail...

A respiration–posture feedback system was developed to control breathing involuntarily. A small air chamber placed under a subject’s back deflates and inflates to make a subject’s upper body move vertically while lying on a bed. By regulating the deflation/inflation of the air chamber in synchronization with actual respiration, the subject’s respir...

We investigated the psychophysiological effects of eight different aromas under a short-term stressor, in a within-subject experiment using an olfactometer. In this preliminary study, 6 male university students performed a 30-min calculation task under the aroma conditions: Chocolate, Strawberry, Green tea, Apple, Citrus ginger, Chamomile, Cedarwoo...

We investigated the effect of two different concentrations of orange aroma on peripheral and cardiac autonomic nervous system activity under a stressful condition in a highly reproducible manner. In the within-subjects experiment, 19 subjects performed a 30-min calculation task under three aroma conditions: 1% orange, 20% orange, and scentless air...

The dynamics of dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and cortisol secretion from sleep through awakening were examined by collecting and analyzing saliva samples using a novel method. Sixteen male university students who voluntarily participated in this study were instructed to sleep from 0000 h to 0600 h, and their salivary cortisol and DHEA concentratio...

Stress is a risk factor for the onset of mental disorders. Although stress response varies across individuals, the mechanism of individual differences remains unclear. Here, we investigated the neural basis of individual differences in response to mental stress using magnetoencephalography (MEG). Twenty healthy male volunteers completed the Tempera...

We have examined methods to effectively restrain driver's drowsiness by controlling their nasal skin temperature. In resent years, the various kind of techniques for detecting the drowsiness recently has been proposed. In reality, however, these techniques have the problem which influences driver's operation because they already has suitable sleepi...

We evaluated the psychophysiological stress of schoolteachers involved in “emotional labor” by assessing their immune substances and hormones in their saliva. Saliva collection was chosen because it is a noninvasive and nonstressful method. Participants were 28 male schoolteachers engaged at a primary and secondary school; no participant was under...

We developed a bio-signal interactive virtual reality (VR) system to investigate the impression of users as a pilot study. In this study, three different VR scenes were given to the subjects of 20 healthy university students: bonfire (regulated with Electrocardiogram), firefly and butterfly (regulated with respiration signal). The subjective outcom...

Beyond the conventional playlists organized based on genre, artist, or album, the study attempts to visualize a music library on a 2D plane enabling the users for emotion based navigation. A dataset constructed for this research purpose, comprising of music stimuli which associate Sri Lankan folk melodies has been utilized in the study. Using the m...

Measuring successful introduction of the access mode choice behavior with concerning the customer satisfaction is vital to improve the attractiveness of the service sector of public transport. This study examined a model with a statistical approach of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to assess the affection of access mode choice to select the mai...

This study examines a model to evaluate the probability of choosing the mode of public transport with finding most significant aspects related to the characteristic of the journey, characteristic of the traveler and the personal behavior of the traveler. The study area was focused on eleven Divisional Secretariat Divisions of the Colombo Metropolit...

We investigated the effects of two prominent aromas, lavender and jasmine, on peripheral and cardiac autonomic nervous system activity under stressful conditions, in a highly reproducible manner using an olfactometer. The subjects comprised 17 healthy men aged 20–24 years. In this within-subjects study design, all subjects were required to perform...

Increasing congestion on roads in metropolitan region and increasing usage of private vehicles are the serious issues that affected to the development of the transportation sector. Sri Lanka incurs a huge economic loss of around 40 billion Rupees annually due to road traffic congestion and air pollution with too many vehicles on a limited road netw...

We conducted an experiment in which visual discontinuity between one’s own body parts disturbs the unity of the body and elicits subjective and conscious disownership. Previous studies have demonstrated a decrease in feelings of ownership over an external object from a first-person viewpoint. In contrast, the present study suggests that people can...

The overall aim of the study is to develop the ambient drowsiness control programs based on driver’s physiological states. this study is developed and verified of a system that controls a driver’s drowsiness a stimulus that is too small to be noticed by a driver. Most studies on driver drowsiness have focused on the detection or evaluation of psych...

The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of aroma inhalation on salivary cortisol secretion during sleep and after awakening. We used two essential oils that are known to have opposite effects on the behavior of the autonomous nervous system: lavender that induces the parasympathetic nervous system, and jasmine that induces the sym...

The effect of an alerting odorant on the secretion of salivary cortisol during sleep and after awakening was investigated. Salivary cortisol was assessed because this glucocorticoid represents activation of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) system, which is a dominant stress reaction pathway in the body. Subjects were exposed to an alerting...

An Electret Condenser Microphone (ECM) fabricated by Micro Electro Mechanical System (MEMS) technology, or a silicon microphone chip, was integrated into a multiple sensor apparatus to detect human pulse wave toward estimation of physical condition of our body. Ten of MEMS-ECMs were placed at the forearm of a subject with multi-channel signal ampli...

Transdermal assessment of cortisol awakening response (CAR) by microneedle perforation technique was regarded. CAR is a prominent cortisol variation after awakening. Since it has been reported to associate with chronic or daily stress, CAR is assumed as a possible stress indication. However CAR determination by saliva has methodological disadvantag...

An Electret Condenser Microphone (ECM) fabricated by Micro Electro Mechanical System (MEMS) technology, or a silicon microphone, was employed as a novel apparatus for human pulse wave measurement. Since ECM frequency response characteristic, i.e. sensitivity, theoretically constant in the level at lower than resonance frequency as stiffness control...

A micro Electret Condenser Microphone (ECM) fabricated by Micro Electro Mechanical System (MEMS) technology was employed as a novel apparatus for human pulse wave measurement. Since ECM frequency response characteristic, i.e. sensitivity, logically maintains a constant level at lower than the resonance frequency (stiffness control), the slightest p...

Automated human identification by their walking behavior is a challenge attracting much interest among machine vision researchers. However, practical systems for such identification remain to be developed. In this study, a machine learning approach to understand human behavior based on motion imagery was proposed as the basis for developing pedestr...

This paper presents a new dimension in e-learning by collecting and analyzing physiological data during real-world e-learning sessions. Two different content materials, namely Interactive (IM) and Non-interactive (N-IM), were utilized to determine the physiological state of e-learners. Electrocardiogram (ECG) and Skin Conductance Level (SCL) were r...

Recent advances in molecular analysis techniques have enabled scientists to assess the tiny amounts of biochemical substances secreted in our bodies. This has revealed that the levels of various secretory hormones and immune substances vary sensitively with the mental state of a person. Such hormones and immune substances exhibit transient increase...

In this study, a novel approach towards the evaluation of students in e-learning sessions is regarded; the physiological responses of the students who were engaged in e-leaming materials were investigated. Among a full battery of physiological signals, we focused on human hemodynamic activity, which is represented by the blood pressure. The past he...

Physiological signals or biosignals are electrical, chemical, or mechanical signals that created by biological events such as a beating heart or a contracting muscle producing signals that can be measured and analyzed. These signals are generated from the metabolic activities of human internal organs. Therefore, in certain conditions, physiological...

Recent behavioral medicine studies have revealed that various human secretory substances change according to mental states. These substances, the hormones and immune substances show transient increase against mental stress. Therefore it is frequently introduced as an objective index (biomarker) of mental stress. Especially the biomarker which is de...

We investigated the brain potential in relation with the recognition of Müller-Lyer (ML) illusionary figure, which was a famous optical illusion. Although it is frequently assumed that the ML illusionary effect could be derived from its geometrical construction, it derives the same length miss-estimation effect on the sense of touch; haptic illusio...

Recent behavioral medicine studies have revealed that some hormones secreted in human body sensitively changes according to his/her mental stress. Thus it is expected as an objective measurement of mental stress. However this newly developed interdisciplinary studies frequently showed inconsistent results. Some technical reasons were indicated for...

To illuminate the synchronization phenomena between heartbeat and music, the effects of a sedative music of variable tempo on heart rates were investigated. In the experiment, nine subjects were exposed to the sedative music with having changes in its tempo. The tempo gradually increases, decreases, or stands stable in the music (hereafter these ex...

This study aims to evaluate student physiological response towards the e-learning materials. The experiments were conducted by introducing two contracting e-learning materials, i.e., the one is characterized as interactive material and the other is non-interactive one. During the experiment physiological sensor, i.e., galvanic skin response (GSR) s...

(OBJECTIVE) Recent psycho-physiological studies have revealed close relationships between human mental stress and secretion of hormones and/or immunological substances. However, a precise elaboration of fluctuations in the secretion of these biomarkers in the time series against stress is not yet clearly illuminated. In this study, we used Chromogr...

The authors have researched a support system of the reminiscence and life review activity. This support system consists of an interactive tabletop display and interface system. An invisible code is one of the useful technologies. The invisible codes provide us with an operating environment using a pen-like device. However, this technology is applie...

We developed a glasses-free 3D stereoscopic display using an LCD display panel, a view control film and a grating film for stereoscopic viewing. The display screen is divided in half in order that left and right regions provide the stereoscopic images for left and right eyes. Because both stereoscopic images are not in the same position, it is diff...

The authors describe a 360 degree viewing display that can be viewed from any direction. To generate all-around 360 degree viewing window, we developed a special diffusion screen with one viewing aperture using holographic optical elements.

Final year students are normally encountering high pressing in their study. In view of this fact, this research focuses on determining mental states condition of college student in final year based on the psycho-physiological information. The experiments were conducted in two times, i.e., prior- and post- graduation seminar examination. The early r...

Person will normally experience mental distress when they are doing activities like working, studying or even browsing the internet. In addition, everybody have different behavior to cope with stress, and such kind of behavior could be monitored from biosignal generated by human body. In view of fact, identifying mental workload pattern of persons...

An integrated psychophysiological study was made for investigating the impact of 'red colour' on bodily reaction induced by stress. With regard to the psychophysiological measures, we assayed salivary-secreted substances such as hormones and immune substance as introductory novel biometric. We compared with conventional physiological measures such...

Automated human identification by their walking behavior is a challenge attracting much interest among machine vision researchers. However, practical systems for such identification remain to be developed. In this study, a machine learning approach to understand human behavior based on motion imagery was proposed as the basis for developing pedestr...

This study aims at an application of rough set theory to illustrate the relationship between human psychological and physiological states. Recent behavioral medicine studies have revealed that various human secretory substances change according to mental states. These substances, the hormones and immune substances, show temporal increase against me...

The impact of extensively usage visual display terminal (VDT) on automatic nervous system are observed and analyzed based on physiological information, i.e., electroencephalogram (EEG), heart rate variability (HRV) and thermograph. Two types of experiment which have different intermittent schedule were conducted using the Kraepelin psychodiagnostic...

Recent psycho-physiological studies have revealed close relationships between human mental stresses and secretion of hormonal and immunological substances. However, a precise elaboration of fluctuations in the secretion of these biomarkers in the time series against stress; especially against a rather mild stressful task is not yet clearly illumina...

Knowledge is a key factor to the personal success. Further, the certifications are the instant tools that are commonly available to assess the personal success. In an e-Learning environment, where the learning projects are delivered with the aim to provide a professional or an academic certification, it is integral that the Learning Management Syst...

Synchronous visuo-tactile stimulation of the type in the rubber hand illusion (RHI)^1-3^ and in out of body experience (OBE)^4,5^ can induce the brain to incorporate external objects or images into a part or whole of body image. Whether in the context of RHI or OBE, since the participant passively receives visuo-tactile stimulations, body image app...

This study aims at an application of rough set theory to illustrate the relationship between human psychological and physiological states. Recent behavioral medicine studies have revealed that various human secretory substances change according to mental states. These substances, the hormones and immune substances, show temporal increase against me...

Knowledge is a key factor to the personal success. The certifications are the instant tools that are commonly available to assess the personal success. In an e-Learning environment, where the learning projects are delivered with the aim to provide a professional or an academic certification, it is integral that the Learning Management Systems provi...

This paper aimed at evaluating the mental work and the simple work with the nasal skin temperature. We focused on the intermittent type of work. In the experiment, we introduced a facial skin thermal image comparing with conventional physiological indices, such as electrocardiogram (ECG) and electroencephalogram (EEG). As a result, the facial skin...

The mixed logit model is a class of non-IIA discrete choice models that can handle correlation among the alternatives. Although they have been frequently applied in choice analysis, properties of their parameter estimates are not well known. The mixed logit estimation exercise on simulated data sets in this study offers examples of identification p...

Recent psychophysiological studies have revealed a close relationship between mental states of human and secretion of hormones and immunological substances. In this study, we used a major secretory immune substance, secretory Immunoglobulin A (IgA), as a biomarker of stress caused by mental workload. In the experiment, subjects were required to con...

Recent behavioral medicine studies have revealed that the human secretory substances change according to his/her mental states. Especially, those substances transiently get increase (or decrease) against the short-term experimental stressors. However, the relation with rather longer stressor, or daily stressor, has not yet well understood or report...

Psychophysiological studies have revealed the close relationship between subjects' mental states and his/her secretion of hormones and immune substances. In this study, one of the major secretory immune substance, secretory Immunoglobulin A, was assessed as a biomarker of the workload with visual display terminal (VDT). In the experiment, subjects...

Recent psychophysiological studies revealed that the human endocrine and immune secretion changes its level sensitively according to participants' subjective mental stress and relaxation. In this study, one of the major secretory immune substance, secretory Immunoglobulin A (slgA), is assessed to investigate the human secretory response induced by...

Recently, some studies suggest the possibility that human endocrine and immune secretion fluctuate sensitively according to participants' subjective mental stress and relaxation. In this study, we focused on one of the major immune substance, immunoglobulin A, and investigated the modulation of IgA induced by stressful task of VDT deskwork and foll...

Random-dot stereograms (RDS) has been used for the research for neurophysiological mechanism of binocular vision. In such studies, visually evoked potentials (VEP) were often recorded as the characteristic brain wave concerning with binocular vision. However, in common experimental procedure of those studies, there is a possibility that those VEPs...

Keeping in mind the problem what is easiness in looking images and hearing sounds, we investigate here whether auditory cognitive processes affect mental stress of listener. In this study, we have made first preliminary experiments to our main experiment. The preliminary experiments were made to obtain "continuous" time responses of secretory immun...

We studied animal’s learning of spatial discrimination in an experimental environment. Turtles, Chinemys reevesii, were employed for the study. We focused on two independent aspects: (1) turtle’s success rate in the task, which is the most common criterion to estimate the ability of the animals, and (2) the statistical properties of the time interv...

Akio Nozawa (akio@ee.meisei-u.ac.jp) Abstract Recent psychophysiological studies have revealed that the human endocrine and immune secretion changes its level sensitively according to participants' subjective stress and relaxation. In this study, one of the major secretory immune substances, salivary Immunoglobulin A (IgA), was assessed to investig...

The effect of pleasant and unpleasant odor on human physiological state was preliminary investigated b y assessing salivary substances. A term "pleasant" (o r unpleasant) is rather showing one's subjective an d thus mental state meanwhile the odor itself should give an impact to both human mind and body. This study was aimed at investigating an eff...

There is growing evidence suggesting that the magnitude of cortisol awaking response (CAR), which is characterized by a profound increase of salivary cortisol secretion after awakening, plausibly reflects the level of a chronic stress, social stress, anxiety, etc. In this study the alternation of CAR at the start and at the end of two weeks session...

Color is an inseparable element of our lives and is a part of everything we perceive. Colour has a strong impact on our decision making process. Therefore there is a direct connection between the colour and psychological functions. Kansei is a Japanese concept, which abstracts the subjective internal process in the brain, which is activated by exte...

This paper was aimed at evaluating the mental work-load (MWL) with psycho-physiological indices. Especially, we focused on the intermittent type of MWL, which is assumed as a predisposing factor of various somatic and mental disorders. In the experiment, we introduced a facial skin thermo image comparing with conventional physiological indices, suc...

Recent behavioural medicine studies have revealed that the human secretory substances change according to his/her mental states. Especially, those substances transiently get increase (or decrease) against the short-term experimental stressors. However, the relation with rather longer stressor, or daily stressor, has not yet well understood or repor...

Two contrasting approaches toward an epidemic study were illustrated as a pilot study; the regression analysis which is rather conventional methodology used in the past/present epidemic studies, and the other is the classifier analysis which is in the soft computing toolbox. The dataset we used for this study is obtained from a part of a cohort stu...

Previous studies suggest that relaxing music alleviates subjective anxiety, depression, and bodily pain. On the other hand, while those effects obtained from psychological studies, mainly using subjective questionnaires, are seemed to be well consistent literally and empirically, the effects of music on the physiological indices, that is assumed to...