Characteristics of Haptic Peripersonal Spatial Representation of Object Relations

Haptic perception of space is known to show characteristics that are different to actual space. The current study extends on this line of research, investigating whether systematic deviations are also observed in the formation of haptic spatial representations of object-to-object relations. We conducted a haptic spatial reproduction task analogous to the parallelity task with spatial layouts. Three magnets were positioned to form corners of an isosceles triangle and the task of the participant was to reproduce the right angle corner. Weobserved systematic deviations in the reproduction of the right angle triangle. The systematic deviations were not observed when the task was conducted on the mid-sagittal plane. Furthermore, the magnitude of the deviation was decreased when non-informative vision was introduced. These results suggest that there is a deformation in spatial representation of object-to-object relations formed using haptics. However, as no systematic deviation was observed when the task was conducted on the mid-saggital plane, we suggest that the perception of object-to-object relations use a different egocentric reference frame to the perception of orientation

Sampling, identification and sensory evaluation of odors of a newborn baby’s head and amniotic fluid

For baby odor analyses, noninvasive, stress-free sample collection is important. Using a simple method, we succeeded in obtaining fresh odors from the head of five newborn babies. These odors were chemically analyzed by two-dimensional gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC x GC-MS), and compared with each other or with the odor of amniotic fluid from the baby\u27s mother. We identified 31 chemical components of the volatile odors from neonate heads and 21 from amniotic fluid. Although 15 of these components were common to both sources, there was an apparent difference in the GC x GC patterns between the head and amniotic fluid odors, so the neonate head odor might be individually distinct immediately after birth. Therefore, we made artificial mixtures of the major odor components of the neonate head and maternal amniotic fluid, and used psychological tests to examine whether or not these odors could be distinguished from each other. Our data show that the artificial odor of a neonate head could be distinguished from that of amniotic fluid, and that the odors of artificial head odor mixtures could be correctly discriminated for neonates within an hour after birth and at 2 or 3 days of age

Consistency of perceiving odors: Inter- and Intra- Individual Differences in Odor Similarity Ratings

This study conducted odor pair similarity ratings twice and used the replicability of the ratings, as indicated by the correlation coefficients between the two sets of ratings, to examine the consistency of odor perception. The results showed that the correlation coefficient between the two ratings of the participants was generally low, and many participants did not rate the odor pairs’ similarly between the two sessions. Therefore, we concluded that participants did not consistently perceive the similarity of an odor quality when making repeated ratings, indicating low consistency in odor perception. In particular, participants showed more errors of rating, such as rating different odor pairs as "similar" in the second session. The lower correlation coefficient between the two ratings suggests that reduced carefulness in the rating due to familiarity may have caused the low rating consistency. Despite the low individual correlation coefficient between the two ratings, we observed a high mean correlation between the two ratings for all the experimental participants. Furthermore, the influence of outliers and errors of rating disappeared when we calculated the ratings of approximately seven participants in Experiments 1 and 3. In addition, despite significant individual differences in ratings, the mean similarity ratings for odor pairs with no overlapping components between them were low, whereas the similarity ratings for overlapping pairs were high. These findings indicate the possibility of perceiving the general characteristics of odor pairs to be evaluated, but not the subtle details

Characteristics of Haptic Peripersonal Spatial Representation of Object Relations.

Haptic perception of space is known to show characteristics that are different to actual space. The current study extends on this line of research, investigating whether systematic deviations are also observed in the formation of haptic spatial representations of object-to-object relations. We conducted a haptic spatial reproduction task analogous to the parallelity task with spatial layouts. Three magnets were positioned to form corners of an isosceles triangle and the task of the participant was to reproduce the right angle corner. Weobserved systematic deviations in the reproduction of the right angle triangle. The systematic deviations were not observed when the task was conducted on the mid-sagittal plane. Furthermore, the magnitude of the deviation was decreased when non-informative vision was introduced. These results suggest that there is a deformation in spatial representation of object-to-object relations formed using haptics. However, as no systematic deviation was observed when the task was conducted on the mid-saggital plane, we suggest that the perception of object-to-object relations use a different egocentric reference frame to the perception of orientation

においのトラウマ記憶に関する実態調査ならびに実験的検討

科学研究費助成事業 研究成果報告書：挑戦的萌芽研究2014-2016課題番号 : 2659017

A schematic diagram of the 8 layouts used in the experiment.

<p>For each layout, the right angle corner was the corner which the participant reproduced.</p

A schematic diagram of the experimental setup for the right handed group.

<p>The rectangle represents the table. The white circles depict possible places where magnets could be located. Three out of the eight positions were used to make an isosceles triangle. Participants wore eye masks throughout the experiment.</p

The frequency of mean trials reproduced in the four areas.

<p>The frequency of mean trials reproduced in the four areas.</p