Unconscious Other's Impression Changer: A Method to Manipulate Cognitive Biases That Subtly Change Others' Impressions Positively/Negatively by Making AI Bias in Emotion Estimation AI.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) for human emotion estimation, such as facial emotion estimation, has been actively studied. On the other hand, there has been little research on unconscious phenomena in cognition and psychology (i.e., cognitive biases) caused by viewing AI emotion estimation information. Therefore, this study verifies RQ "Do people have a cognitive bias in which impressions of others (i.e., how to see and feel about others) are changed by viewing biased AI's emotion estimation information? If it exists, can impression manipulation methods that intentionally use this cognitive bias be realized?" The proposed method for verification makes the emotion estimation system biased so as to estimate emotion more positively/negatively than AI without bias. A prototype system was implemented. Evaluation using video showed that the presentation of biased emotion estimation information causes a phenomenon that quickly and unconsciously changes the way people see and feel others' impressions, which supported the RQ. Specifically, viewing information that estimated others' emotions more positively/negatively caused the phenomenon in which the user's self-judgment was overridden and others' impressions of emotions, words, and actions were perceived more positively/negatively. The existence of this phenomenon and method indicates that biased emotion estimation AI has the potential to both cause adverse effects on people and support people for good purposes through the manipulation of their impressions. This study provides helpful insights for the design and use of emotion estimation AI considering cognitive biases.

Exploring Tactile Stimuli from a Wrist-Worn Device to Manipulate Subjective Time Based on the Filled-Duration Illusion.

There are situations where manipulating subjective time would be desirable, such as reducing waiting time, and there are many studies to manipulate subjective time. However, it is not easy to use previous methods in various situations because most of them use visual and auditory information. This study proposes a method to manipulate the subjective time by the tactile stimuli from wrist-worn devices. We designed three types of tactile stimuli presentation methods that change the number, the duration, and the time interval of the stimuli. The evaluation result clarified the elements of the tactile stimuli that intentionally changed the subjective time and confirmed that our method can change the subjective time by about 23% (from -6% to +17%). Since few studies have focused on the phenomenon in which the subjective time changes depending on the tactile stimuli from information devices, our findings can contribute to designing information devices and user experiences.

The structure of the superior and inferior parietal lobes predicts inter-individual suitability for virtual reality.

The global virtual reality (VR) market is significantly expanding and being challenged with an increased demand owing to COVID-19. Unfortunately, VR is not useful for everyone due to large interindividual variability existing in VR suitability. To understand the neurobiological basis of this variability, we obtained neural structural and functional data from the participants using 3T magnetic resonance imaging. The participants completed one of two tasks (sports training or cognitive task) using VR, which differed in the time scale (months/minutes) and domain (motor learning/attention task). Behavioral results showed that some participants improved their motor skills in the real world after 1-month training in the virtual space or obtained high scores in the 3D attention task (high suitability for VR), whereas others did not (low suitability for VR). Brain structure analysis revealed that the structural properties of the superior and inferior parietal lobes contain information that can predict an individual's suitability for VR.

A Method for Behavior Change Support by Controlling Psychological Effects on Walking Motivation Caused by Step Count Log Competition System.

Systems presenting information that encourages competition by using rankings and scores (hereafter referred to as competition information) have become widespread to support behavioral change. However, users without high levels of motivation, such as behavior change support targets, do not necessarily benefit from competition information. In this study, we propose a method to control the psychological effects caused by competition information to support behavior change. We implemented a competition information presentation system using step counts logs to support increasing one's daily steps. We designed two patterns of competition information considering psychological effects. One is likely to have good effects, using three mechanisms to easily obtain results corresponding to the effort, make closely matched rivals with similar abilities, and pay attention to a small number of rivals. The other is unlikely to have positive effects and may potentially even have negative ones, using a mechanism that brings about the opposite results of the former pattern. We evaluated 42 participants with low levels of motivation over six weeks. The results showed that the former information pattern increased participants' step counts by about 1000 steps per day, and the latter information pattern did not lead to an increase. We confirmed the feasibility of the proposed method and discussed the possibility of the appropriate use and potential abuse of such techniques for manipulating motivation. Our study can be helpful in designing a competition information presentation system considering psychological effects.