Many people now listen to music with earphones while walking, and are less likely to notice approaching people, cars, etc. Many methods of detecting approaching objects and notifying pedestrians have been proposed, but few have focused on low urgency situations or music listeners, and many notification methods are unpleasant. Therefore, in this work, we propose methods of gently notifying pedestrians listening to music of approaching objects using environmental sound. We conducted experiments in a virtual environment to assess directional perception accuracy and comfort. Our results show the proposed method allows participants to detect the direction of approaching objects as accurately as explicit notification methods, with less discomfort. 

Yuki Sakashita (M2)

• Yuki Sakashita, Yoshio Ishiguro, Kento Ohtani, Takanori Nishino, and Kazuya Takeda. 2022. Methods of Gently Notifying Pedestrians of Approaching Objects when Listening to Music, In Adjunct Proceedings of the 35th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST ’22 Adjunct).

Vehicle dashboard cameras are becoming an increasingly popular kind of automotive accessory. While it is easy to obtain the high-definition video data recorded by dashcams using Secure Digital memory cards, this data is rarely used except for safety purposes because it takes substantial time and effort to review or edit many hours of such recorded videos. In this paper, we propose a new usage for this data through the automatic video editing system we have developed that can create enjoyable video summaries of road trips utilizing video and other data from the vehicle. We also report the results of comparisons between automatically edited videos created by the proposed system and manually edited videos created by study participants. The prototype developed in this study and the findings from our experiments will contribute to improving the driving experience by providing entertainment for automobile users after road trips, and by memorializing their travels.

Kana Bito (M1)

• 尾頭 花奈, 石黒 祥生, 椎尾 一郎, 武田 一哉, ドライブレコーダを活用した旅の要約動画自動生成システム, コンピュータ ソフトウェア, 2022, 39 巻, 4 号, p. 4_144-4_157 

• 尾頭花奈, 石黒祥生, 椎尾一郎, 武田一哉, ドライブレコーダのデータから旅行の思い出動画を自動生成するwebサービスの実装,  ソフトウェア科学会WISS2021論文集, No. 94, pp. 71-77, 静岡県浜松市, 2021.12.8-10. （ユニティ・テクノロジーズ・ジャパン賞 受賞）

• Kana Bito, Itiro Siio, Yoshio Ishiguro, and Kazuya Takeda. 2021. Automatic Generation of Road Trip Summary Video for Reminiscence and Entertainment using Dashcam Video. In 13th International Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications (AutomotiveUI '21), September 9–14, 2021, Leeds, United Kingdom. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 10 Pages.  (Honorable mention 受賞)

• 公開したwebシステム：https://bitokana.com

Due to the rapid development of automated driving technology, the issue of how people will spend their time when traveling in fully automated vehicles is attracting much attention. Infotainment systems that use virtual reality (VR) environments have been proposed as a way to occupy the passengers of automated vehicles when human intervention in the driving process is no longer necessary. In the present study, we investigate whether a passenger’s speed perception can be manipulated using only auditory stimuli, by having them listen to the sound of an engine accelerating, moving at a constant speed, or decelerating without any visual stimuli. We experimentally verify that it is possible to manipulate a passenger’s subjective perception of speed, based on participant feedback, although no significant difference in their perception of speed was observed in our objective evaluation.

Yuta Kanayama(M1)

• Yuta Kanayama, Yoshio Ishiguro, Takanori Nishino, Kento Ohtani, and Kazuya Takeda. 2021. Ubiquitous Robots2021, pp.332-335

In this paper we propose an interactive system that allows only the owner of a target object to secretly find it among other similar or identical objects, which we call SecretSign. Finding a personal object, e.g. an assigned vehicle in a car-sharing parking lot, where there are many cars that look the same or are similar, can be difficult. In addition, we may not want to notify other people which object we are looking for, e.g. a car thief waiting to steal a car when the driver opens the door. Our proposed system allows a user to find an object without notifying others of the target, using a light attached to the target object which turns on and off in conjunction with user's operation of a remote control device, while lights on the other objects turn on and off randomly. 

Hiromi Morita (B4, Alumni) , Yusuke Sakai (D1)

• Y. Sakai, H. Morita, Y. Ishiguro, T. Nishino and K. Takeda, "SecretSign: A Method of Finding an Off-Line Target Object without Revealing the Target to Observers," 2018 21st International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC), Maui, HI, 2018, pp. 3651-3656.

• 森田 弘美，石黒 祥生（名大），西野 隆典（名城大），武田 一哉（名大），Secret Sign：目的対象物発見のための秘匿性の高いインタラクション手法，情報処理学会インタラクション2018，pp. 437-442.

In order to make the experience of traveling in automated vehicles more enjoyable, Virtual Reality (VR) experiences based on the real-world journey have been proposed. Presenting users with VR content synched to the car's actual movement decreases the motion sickness, but it also sharply limits the possible range of VR content. In this paper, we investigate whether the user's subjective perception of speed can be 'modified' by presenting VR content at a different speed than the actual speed of the vehicle, and whether users feel this experience is strange. Study participants viewed VR content occurring at a faster or slower speed than their actual travel speed in an electric wheelchair. Our results show that the participants were able to do this without experiencing a feeling of "strangeness". However, the participants did report higher "strangeness" scores when the speed in the VR content was slower than their actual speed.

Toshimitsu Watababe(B4, Alumni), Yusuke Sakai(D1)

• Yusuke Sakai, Toshimitsu Watanabe, Yoshio Ishiguro, Takanori Nishino, and Kazuya Takeda. 2019. Effects on user perception of a ‘modified’ speed experience through in-vehicle virtual reality. AutomotiveUI ’19. ACM, 166-170. ​