Browsing by Author "Sugimoto, Maki"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    FaceDrive: Facial Expression Driven Operation to Control Virtual Supernumerary Robotic Arms
    (The Eurographics Association, 2019) Fukuoka, Masaaki; verhulst, adrien; Nakamura, Fumihiko; Takizawa, Ryo; Masai, Katsutoshi; Sugimoto, Maki; Kakehi, Yasuaki and Hiyama, Atsushi
    Supernumerary Robotic Limbs (SRLs) can make physical activities easier, but require cooperation with the operator. To improve cooperation between the SRLs and the operator, the SRLs can try to predict the operator's intentions. A way to predict the operator's intentions is to use his/her Facial Expressions (FEs). Here we investigate the mapping between FEs and Supernumerary Robotic Arms (SRAs) commands (e.g. grab, release). To measure FEs, we used a optical sensor-based approach (here inside a HMD). The sensors data are fed to a SVM able to predict FEs. The SRAs can then carry out commands by predicting the operator's FEs (and arguably, the operator's intention). We ran a data collection study (N=10) to know which FEs assign to which robotic arm commands in a Virtual reality Environment (VE). We researched the mapping patterns by (1) performing an object reaching - grasping - releasing task using ''any'' FEs; (2) analyzing sensors data and a self-reported FE questionnaire to find the most common FEs used for a given command; (3) classifying the FEs in FEs groups. We then ran another study (N=14) to find the most effective combination of FEs groups / SRAs commands by recording task completion time. As a result, we found that the optimum combinations are: (i) Eyes + Mouth for grabbing / releasing; and (ii) Mouth for extending / contracting the arms (i.e. a along the forward axis).
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    Investigating Perception of Multiple Virtual Hands using Startle Response
    (The Eurographics Association, 2022) Mashiyama, Yuki; Fukuoka, Masaaki; Teo, Theophilus; Kondo, Ryota; Sugimoto, Maki; Theophilus Teo; Ryota Kondo
    Studies have been conducted to examine the human body perception of a whole body when having multiple bodies. In this paper, we investigate how does the sense of body ownership and the sense of agency change when a user synchronously moves multiple body parts in a virtual environment. Participants in a demonstration will perform a reaching task for 150 seconds by physically moving their right hands while visualised as one or nine hands in a virtual reality environment. At the end of the reaching task, a threat stimulus is triggered and participants' electromyography are measured as an objective index of the sense of body ownership. Finally, a short survey will be conducted to query the strength of the subjective sense of body ownership and agency.
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    Mingle with an Amoeba
    (The Eurographics Association, 2022) Nakabayashi, Yuki; Arai, Tastuki; Ozaki, Miruku; Kawamura, Koki; Tsuboji, Koki; Nakagawa, Maho; Nitta, Yasuhiro; Haba, Ryotaro; Hamano, Sho; Matsutani, Yuki; Mashiyama, Yuki; Sugimoto, Maki; Theophilus Teo; Ryota Kondo
    Amoebas are microorganisms ranging in length from 25 to 400µm and are not large enough for humans to touch. Also, since they are not visible in everyday life, it isn't easy to get involved with amoebas. In this project, we create an opportunity to have simulated contact with amoebas in a virtual environment. By touching the transparent slime as if it were an amoeba, you can experience transforming the amoeba with your own hands, seeing the amoeba's reaction to being touched, and perceiving Pseudo Haptics information via visual vibrations from the amoeba.
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    Pseudo Physical Contact and Communication in VRChat: A Study with Survey Method in Japanese Users
    (The Eurographics Association, 2020) Nagamachi, Kazuya; Kato, Yuki; Sugimoto, Maki; Inami, Masahiko; Kitazaki, Michiteru; Kulik, Alexander and Sra, Misha and Kim, Kangsoo and Seo, Byung-Kuk
    VRChat is one of social virtual reality platforms and getting popular. Pseudo physical contacts are used for communication in VRChat. We performed a questionnaire survey for VRChat users (N=341) in Japan to take statistics of users and their avatars, and to investigate effects of pseudo physical contacts on interpersonal attractiveness and communication. Users were 87% male, 8% female, and 4% neutral genders in the real world, while their avatars were 4% male, 87% female, and 9% neutral. Participants answered that the interpersonal attractiveness increased and the communication difficulty decreased after pseudo physical contacts, suggesting that the pseudo physical contact may improve our social relationship without actual touch.
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    Real Time Remapping of a Third Arm in Virtual Reality
    (The Eurographics Association, 2019) Drogemuller, Adam; verhulst, adrien; Volmer, Benjamin; Thomas, Bruce; Inami, Masahiko; Sugimoto, Maki; Kakehi, Yasuaki and Hiyama, Atsushi
    We present an initial study investigating the usability of a system for users to use their own limbs (here the left arm, right arm, left leg, right leg and head) to remap and control a virtual third arm. The remapping was done by: pre-selecting the limb by gazing over it, then selecting it by voice activation (here we asked the participants to say ''switch''). The system was evaluated in Virtual Reality (VR), where we recorded the performance of participants (N=12, within-group design) in 2 box collection tasks. We found that participants self-reported: (i) significantly less body ownership in switching limbs than in not switching limbs; and (ii) less effort in switching limbs than not switching limbs. In addition, we found that dominant limbs do not significantly affect remap decisions in controlling the third arm.
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    The Sense of Agency, Sense of Body Ownership with a Semi-autonomous Telexistence Robot under Shared / Unshared Intention Conditions
    (The Eurographics Association, 2022) Takechi, Tohru; Nakamura, Fumihiko; Fukuoka, Masaaki; Ienaga, Naoto; Sugimoto, Maki; Theophilus Teo; Ryota Kondo
    With the increasing popularity of robots such as teleoperated semi-autonomous robots, sense of agency (SoA) and sense of body ownership (SoBO) with semi-autonomous robots is becoming increasingly important. This study investigates the changes in the SoA and SoBO when the user control weight of the robot is altered in human-robot collaboration. Through an experiment, we compared the SoA and SoBO in a pick-and-place task using a robotic arm under the conditions in which the autonomous robotic arm shared and unshared the target with the participant. The results showed that the SoA and the SoBO increased with the increase of user control weight. However, the user control weight of 75% achieved a slightly higher SoA than that of 100%.
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    Sense of Ownership, Self-location, and Gaze Responses in Virtual Rubber Hand Illusion
    (The Eurographics Association, 2022) Komori, Takumi; Ishimoto, Hiroki; Ganesh, Gowrishankar; Sugimoto, Maki; Inami, Masahiko; Kitazaki, Michiteru; Theophilus Teo; Ryota Kondo
    It is known that the illusion of body ownership, like as the rubber hand illusion, affects the proprioceptive sense of body position. In the present study, we investigated whether eye movements and pupil responses to the location where the sense of body ownership was induced were also affected. We presented a virtual left hand on a head mounted display and stroked both the virtual hand and the real left hand with a brush, while a light suddenly appeared on the virtual left hand or empty right space randomly. The participants were asked to move the eyes on the light. We found that the illusory ownership of the virtual hand occurred with proprioceptive self-location drift by the synchronous stroking, but the saccade eye movements and pupil sizes were not affected by the illusory body ownership, suggesting that the gaze responses may be independent from the self-body representation.