Naoko Sano

<p> Many of the previous studies in the fields of architectural acoustics concerning concert hall have mainly focused on examination and evaluation of better acoustic characteristics by the audience. On the other hand, several studies have been made from the viewpoint of evaluating sonic field by music players in the field of architectural acoustics associated with music performance. Gade [1989] considered physical parameters of a player's response to the acoustic properties of a concert hall based on subjective parameters. Ueno et al. [2005, 2010] have proposed a performer's cognitive model from the viewpoint of acoustics of the hall, the performer and the audience. In particular, they reported that "performance experience" affects the background of the control process of auditory cognition and performance behavior for "perception, cognition, and judgment" for sounds input from the sound field. Additionally, in the field of music education and psychology of music, it is stated that there are stages in the learning process of that performance (Roger Chaffin, 2001).</p><p> From the above studies, we considered that "Proficiency Level of a Music piece (PLM)" has an effect on performance behavior as much as the "performance experience", when music players perform in a certain sound field. In the present research, we analyzed proficiency process as the period from the time that piano players who have regular skills start reading scores of music pieces to the time that they come to be able to play the piano in public performance on the basis of the cognitive model. Two questionnaires in order to clarify the relationship between the contents of "Practice and Performance Behavior (PPB)" and "Consciousness to sound field" were carried out. In the first research, we made a questionnaire investigation in order to classify PLM. Subjects are asked to answer about "Implementing period" of PPB.</p><p> As a result, PLM was classified into four groups. The four groups are named, I : Reading score of the music piece and understanding the format and composition, II : Understanding the knowledge of the music piece and fixing of the performance, III : Deepening of expression and performance and fixing to memory, IV : Consciousness of unity sense of performance and consideration of objective evaluation.</p><p> In the second research, subjects were asked to evaluate the importance level of PPB at each PLM obtained in the first research by means of questionnaire. Causality analysis were made in order to reveal the relationship among practice, performance behavior and consciousness of the sound field from the viewpoint of PLM. As a result, the practice and performance behavior contents were constituted by five factors. Its contents were mainly "F1 : Reading score / Basics", "F2 : Technique", "F3 : Understanding / Fixing", "F4 : Expression / Quality of timbre", "F5 : Objectivity / Performance venue". Results show that F1, F2 and F5 are affected directly by the progress of PLMs, on the other hand, F3 and F4 receive indirect effects from them. They also show that F2, F3 and F5 have significant effect on F4. Considering the characteristics of four PLMs and the relations among the five factors, it is supposed that consciousness of the sound field is low in the first half of PLM and it increases in the latter half of it.</p>

&nbsp;In order to investigate an influence of indoor sound environment in office on knowledge creative activity, subjective experiments were conducted in our study. In this experiments, subjective evaluations on &ldquo;ease of meeting&rdquo;, &ldquo;quietness of sound environment&rdquo; and &ldquo;listening difficulty of speech&rdquo; in two different types of group meetings (decision-making meeting and discussion to think of creative ideas) were measured under five types of sound environmental conditions (no-noise L_{Aeq, 5min} 38 dB, ambient noise (conversation noise) L_{Aeq, 5min} 40 dB, 45 dB, 50 dB, 60 dB) in a meeting room of the university. From the results, in regard to &ldquo;quietness of sound environment&rdquo;, we found that subjects start feeling noisy (not quiet) in sound environmental condition of ambient noise 50 dB, and that of 60 dB have an increased &ldquo;listening difficulty of speech&rdquo;. In the ambient noise 50 dB, &ldquo;ease of meeting&rdquo; was the highest evaluation for discussion to think of creative ideas among these experimental conditions. Furthermore, to investigate psychological factors related to ease of meeting, multiple regression analysis was performed using the data obtained from subjective experiments. These results of multiple regression analysis show that a quiet sound environment is not necessarily desirable in discussion to think of creative ideas. It was found that very quiet sound environment decrease the evaluation of &ldquo;ease of meeting&rdquo; in discussion to think of creative ideas. Thus, it was suggested that recommended indoor sound environmental condition to conduct discussion to think of creative ideas was ambient noise 50 dB.

To clarify the factors that affect user's evaluation of the lighting environment on station platforms, we measured illuminances and subjective evaluations at 9 stations in Tokyo under low illuminance condition by power saving and under usual condition, after The Great East Japan Earthquake.<br>As the result, it shows that users perceive the changes of illuminance between two conditions, and approve low illuminance conditions. And it is suggested that the evaluation about feelings is less influenced by the change of illuminance than the evaluation about brightness, and is influenced by other factors such as a form of lighting and a spatial form.

In this report, the following conclusions can be drawn after our experiment identified the state of subjects' physiological responses by selecting those exhibiting any VR sickness symptom from 115 general subjects and showing them walkthrough-composed images. (1) The comparison of a value of VR sickness observed and types of displayed images found that the extent of VR sickness is largely determined by distance from the presented image and the passage time of the VR experiences, and that the value of VR sickness observed increases with the passage time. (2) The comparison of types of displayed images found that the sickness by the image is not necessarily caused by stereoscopic vision, in addition to image quality. (3) As for the consideration of the weariness, visual weariness and VR sickness show a high correlation, and when a VR sickness symptom is observed, the rate of visual weariness indicates a relative increase. (4) While the discussion on physiological responses show that a short-time VR experience does not affect the autonomic nervous function, it is suggested that a three-dimensional vision displayed on the screen generates a state of tension, causing subjects VR sickness, according to the analysis of time-series behavior of the heart rate.

The research object is to investigate the effects of luminance level of the light source in the central vision on arousal level, attention and task performance. In this study two experiments were carried. The results are as follows: 1. Comparing to the environment without light, arousal and attention level become higher in the environment with light, but arousal level and attention are not influenced by luminance level on the range of 30 cd/m^2 to 1000 cd/m^2. 2. The performance of computer key-in task and letter detecting task become worse when the lighting environment changes from luminance level of 100 cd/m^2 to 8000 cd/m^2. However, short-term memory task is not influenced by the change of luminance level. Arousal and attention level increasecd when light is put into darkness. However, on the range of luminance level from 30 cd/m^2 to 1000 cd/m^2, arousal and attention level do not change when the level of brightness increases. 0n the contrary, legibility becomes worse, adaptation time becomes longer, and task performance worsens in over-bright environment.