The Effect of Recalling Relationships with Parents

The effect of daily recall of the relationships with one’s parents on self-acceptance and life satisfaction was investigated. One hundred thirty-one undergraduate students in Japan were randomly assigned to one of three conditions (five listings of their relationships with their parents, five records of daily events, and no treatment) for a week. Results indicated that the group recalling parental relationships significantly increased their life satisfaction after the intervention, and their life satisfaction was significantly higher than that of the no treatment group after the intervention. Regarding self-acceptance, no significant intervention effects were found. Conscious daily recall of the relationships with one’s parents may increase one’s life satisfaction

Daily Gratitude Towards One’s Parents and Subjective Well-Being

The effect of daily gratitude towards one’s parents on various subjective well-being measures was investigated. Sixty native Japanese speakers were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions (five listings of gratitude towards parents, five listings of daily events, and no treatment) for a week. Results indicated that the parental gratitude group significantly increased their life satisfaction and subjective happiness, and the daily events listing group significantly increased their life satisfaction and empathy after the intervention. Conscious recitation of gratitude towards one’s parents or daily events may induce positive subjective well-being

Two-Fingered Haptic Device for Robot Hand Teleoperation

A haptic feedback system is required to assist telerehabilitation with robot hand. The system should provide the reaction force measured in the robot hand to an operator. In this paper, we have developed a force feedback device that presents a reaction force to the distal segment of the operator's thumb, middle finger, and basipodite of the middle finger when the robot hand grasps an object. The device uses a shape memory alloy as an actuator, which affords a very compact, lightweight, and accurate device

Development and Validation of the Gratitude Questionnaire (GQ) in Japanese Undergraduate Students

The Gratitude Questionnaire (GQ) became a popular measurement for gratitude research, yet there was no Japanese version published. The purpose of this study was to create a valid and reliable Japanese version of the GQ. One hundred thirty Japanese undergraduate students completed the GQ, subjective happiness, optimism, life satisfaction, hope, and positive and negative affect questionnaires. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) found that the sixth item did not have a significant factor loading, and the 5-item version indicated a better model fit than the original 6-item version. The 5-item version of the GQ was negatively correlated with negative affect and positively correlated with subjective happiness, optimism, life satisfaction, hope, and positive affect. A coefficient alpha was .70 and a 4-week test-retest correlation coefficient was .72. All other CFAs brought affirmative results for its discriminant validity. The 5-item version GQ was recommended for use as a measurement of dispositional gratitude of Japanese undergraduate students

A Picture-Book Recommender System for Extensive Reading on an E-Book System

In this paper, we demonstrate a picture-book recommender system to promote extensive reading in English. Extensive reading refers to the independent reading of a large quantity of material for information or pleasure and is known to be effective for acquisition of a second language. The recommender system is implemented on an e-book system that shows digital learning materials (e.g., textbooks and slides) on student’s device. Activities on the e-book system are recorded as learning logs. The recommender system suggests picture books in English based on contents of English textbooks. Specifically, we implement two recommendation strategies: (1) term-based recommendation and (2) grammar-based recommendation. In the future, we use learning logs and loan records of picture books to investigate the influence of picture books on acquisition of English and to enable personalized recommendations for each student

High-Speed Tactile Sensing for Array-Type Tactile Sensor and Object Manipulation Based on Tactile Information

We have developed a universal robot hand with tactile and other sensors. An array-type tactile sensor is crucial for dexterous manipulation of objects using a robotic hand, since this sensor can measure the pressure distribution on finger pads. The sensor has a very high resolution, and the shape of a grasped object can be classified by using this sensor. The more the number of measurement points provided, the higher the accuracy of the classification, but with a corresponding lengthening of the measurement cycle. In this paper, the problem of slow response time is resolved by using software for an array-type tactile sensor with high resolution that emulates the human sensor system. The validity of the proposed method is demonstrated through experiments