SPRINGER BRIEFS IN

APPLIED SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY

Yasuhiro Suzuki
Rieko Suzuki

Tactile Score
A Knowledge
Media for Tactile
Sense

123
SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences
and Technology

For further volumes:

http://www.springer.com/series/8884
Yasuhiro Suzuki Rieko Suzuki
•

Tactile Score
A Knowledge Media for Tactile Sense

123
Yasuhiro Suzuki Rieko Suzuki
School of Informatics and Sciences Face Therapie Co., Ltd.
Nagoya University Tokyo
Nagoya Japan
Japan
and

Graduate School of System Design

and Management
Keio University
Yokohama
Japan

Additional material to this book can be downloaded from http://extras.springer.com.

ISSN 2191-530X ISSN 2191-5318 (electronic)

ISBN 978-4-431-54546-0 ISBN 978-4-431-54547-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-4-431-54547-7
Springer Tokyo Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013947783

Ó The Author(s) 2014

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of
the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or
information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar
methodology now known or hereafter developed. Exempted from this legal reservation are brief
excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis or material supplied specifically for the
purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the
work. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of
the Copyright Law of the Publisher’s location, in its current version, and permission for use must
always be obtained from Springer. Permissions for use may be obtained through RightsLink at the
Copyright Clearance Center. Violations are liable to prosecution under the respective Copyright Law.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt
from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
While the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of
publication, neither the authors nor the editors nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for
any errors or omissions that may be made. The publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with
respect to the material contained herein.

Printed on acid-free paper

Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)

Preface

Engineering application of a Tactile Score has been studied in human interfaces,

human engineering, robot engineering, and other areas. In these fields, the central
problem has been to recreate a real tactile sense mechanically. For example, there
have been many studies related to fabric textures and measurements in material
engineering. There are many studies in terms of measurements of the tactile sense
and the development of tactile textures. However, conventional research has not
been conducted to find a method for a temporal and spatial combination of the
tactile sense.
A prototypical application of a spatiotemporal combination of the tactile sense
is massage. Massage has been used for many years in medical treatments, in
beauty therapies, and in other ways, but little scientific research on massage has
been done. One of the challenges in research is that a method for describing
massage has not been developed. For that reason, we are proposing a method, or
measure, for describing massage: tactile score. The tactile score denotes the
pressure intensity, the size of the contact area, and the rhythm of strokes. These
three elements can be considered in the context of music scores by regarding
pressure intensity as the pitch of a tone, the size of the contact area as the number
of tones (i.e., whether a single note or a chord), and the rhythm of strokes as
musical notes.
In this book, after a short review of general research on massage and our own
research in the field, we introduce the basics of the tactile score and tactile
composition, then we show the results of the investigation of a kind of massage
called FaceTherapieTM, which has been applied to more than 4,00,000 subjects. By
using an approach from the field of psychology, the semantic differential method,
we derive the basic techniques of massage, and by combining these techniques we
are able to create various kinds of massage. Finally, we introduce projects for the
application of the tactile score. With emotional engineering, we develop facial
equipment for beauty treatment by using the tactile score, and also a transfor-
mation method for extrapolating from a music score to a tactile score. We hope
this book will help to open a new area of tactile research and will bring about a
new appreciation of the joy of the tactile sense.

Yasuhiro Suzuki
Rieko Suzuki

v
Acknowledgments

The authors express their gratitude for the collaboration of the following indi-
viduals and organizations: Dr. Junji Watanabe (NTT Communication Science
Laboratories, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation) in the language of
the tactile sense; Ms. Satoko Inaba and Ms. Mariko Umemura for experiments in
massage; Prof. Takashi Maeno and Prof. Yasutoshi Makino (both at the Graduate
School of System Design Management, Keio University) and Prof. Shigeru
Sakurazawa (Future University Hakodate) in the development and discussion of
haptic engineering; and to Prof. Fuminori Akiba (Nagoya University) for
enlightening discussions. We thank Mrs. Rie Taniguchi (Nagoya University) and
Springer Japan for their Editorial Support. Parts of our Research were supported by
JSPS KAKENHI Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) No. 23300317 and (C)
No. 24520106, which we gratefully acknowledge.

vii
Contents

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Tactile Sense Technologies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Design Methods of Tactile Sense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 Researches of Massage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.4 Massage in Medical Treatments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.5 Facial Massage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

2 Tactile Workshop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1 Haptica Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.1.1 Design of Bodyworkshop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.1.2 Example of Pre-workshop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.1.3 Main Workshop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.2 Bodyworkshops for Education of Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

3 Experiments Relating to Massage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

3.1 Psycho-Physical Experiment of the Tactile Perception . . . . . . . . 15
3.2 Psychonomics Approach. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.3 Related Works and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

4 Tactile Score, ‘‘Syoku-fuTM’’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

4.1 The Way to ‘‘Tactile Score’’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
4.2 Tactile Score, Syoku-fuTM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

5 Investigation of Massage by Using Tactile Score . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

ix
x Contents

6 Method of Composing Massage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

6.1 Language of Tactile Sense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
6.2 Exercise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

7 Future Tactile Sense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

7.1 Creating Tactile Sense as Natural Computing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Chapter 1
Introduction

Abstract In this section, I introduce studies and designs related to Tactile score.
The scientific research of massage has been conducted centered on medicine and
psychology, and those researches show the effectiveness of human hand power. In
this chapter, we introduce the tactile sense technologies, design methods of tactile
sense and show summary of researches related to massage.

Keywords Tactile sense technologies Design methods of tactile sense Review

of tactile sense researches

1.1 Tactile Sense Technologies

Almost all parts of our bodies are covered with skin. If something touches the skin,
we can feel it. The skin connects our outside and inside that means our mind
through tactile sense but some parts such as eyes are not covered with skin. For
example, an eye is a part to see and an ear is a part to hear. All the same, these
parts connect our outside and inside. Speaking in broad terms, all the sense organs
such as skin, eyes, and ears are the membrane which connects our inside and
outside.
When something touches the membrane, we feel the touch of it. For example, it
is a baby’s soft cheek, mellow music, gentle word, delicious food, and tender
solicitude. It has various meanings such as touch, sound, image, taste, and concern.
We can feel them as the sense being touched on the membrane, in other words,
tactile sense.
Tactile sense (skin sensibility) consists mostly of the entire body among
membranes that wrap our bodies. Tactile sense (skin sensibility) is unique organ
which can’t ‘‘close’’ among the senses consist our membranes. We can cover our
ears, close our eyes, hold our nose, and close our mouth but not close tactile sense
(skin sensibility). The importance of this tactile sense has become recognized and
the research of tactile sense has been conducted in various areas.

Y. Suzuki and R. Suzuki, Tactile Score, 1

SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences and Technology,
DOI: 10.1007/978-4-431-54547-7_1, Ó The Author(s) 2014
2 1 Introduction

Tactile sense has been an interesting subject for basic science such as psy-
chology, psychophysics, cognitive science and so on; and recently it also has been
of interest to engineering and design. In engineering, technologies of tactile senses
have been developed in the virtual reality, robotics, ergonomics and so on; where
one of main subjects is ‘‘how to regenerate tactile sense mechanically’’ (for
example [1]) and necessary and desirable applications of such technologies have
been explored. I would like to leave the review in regard to enormous researches
on tactile engineering to another books. In the past, the application of the tactile
engineering to entertainment such as an integration of a tactile sense device to a
video game controller and the application to communication technology such as
applications for mobile phones have been mainly conducted.
For example, A. Chang et al. proposed the ComTouch, which is a device that
augments remote voice communication with touch by converting hand pressure
into vibrational intensity between the users in real-time. They used 24 people to
observe possible uses of the tactile channel when used in conjunction with audio.
By recording and examining both audio and tactile data, they found strong rela-
tionships between the two communication channels. Their studies show that the
users developed an encoding system similar to that of Morse code, as well as three
original uses: emphasis, mimicry, and turn-taking [2].

1.2 Design Methods of Tactile Sense

In the product design or manufacturing, tactile sense is an important factor; for

example in the product design of electronic equipment such as a smart phone or
iPad, tactile sense is a key factor for designing (for example [3]).
In textile science or Ergonomics, what is often called as Fabric hand or handle
has been developed; it is defined as the human tactile sensory response towards
fabric, which involves not only physical but also physiological, perceptional and
social factors [Pan, 4]. ‘‘Peirce in 1930 [4] first proposed to evaluate fabric hand
based on physical measurement data. Since then, there have been several attempts
to use instruments to measure fabric hand. All these efforts climaxed in 1970 when
S. Kawabata and his co-workers in Japan developed a KES-FB system [5, 6] for
fabric hand evaluation [4, P49]’’. Hence we are able to design fabrics with
reference to the evaluation of Fabric hand.
Studies of material dimension in human engineering express material textures
and subjective distances of several materials as quantitative subjective data and
extract potential factors. For example, J. Watanabe has verbalized images of touch
from many tactile materials by using onomatopoeia and made an image map of
tactile sense [7] and Chang have suggested a tactile circle based on the idea of a
color circle regarding the application of haptic technology to communications [2].
1.3 Researches of Massage 3

1.3 Researches of Massage

There are enormous researches of underlying physiology and psychophysics about

tactile sense. They are related to touch receptors and perceptions of touch in low
order. Therefore, its relation to perceptional activities in high order such as
pleasure-displeasure has still remained as a challenging research. As I mentioned
in the Sect. 1.1, how to reproduce realistic tactile sense is the central project in
touch engineering, but the applications of that technology are not many.
Various studies of material textures have been conducted regarding classifica-
tions of each material to the material texture dimension, however there are very
few studies of the material dimension when those materials are combined tem-
porally or spatially. In the case of temporal change in the touch material, for
example, is massage. The tactile sense made with hands in the massage changes
over time.
For example, a massage has been a state of art technique of tactile sense for a
long time; since a massage affects our mental and physiology, it has been used in
broad area and its effects have been investigated in (rehabilitation) medicine,
psychiatry, the art of cosmetic treatments and so on, and it has been shown that a
massage improves functional recovery in rehabilitation, brings realization and
improves the condition of skin. And also tactile sense has been used in education,
training of self-awareness and so on.

1.4 Massage in Medical Treatments

Billhult et al. [8] reported that when breast cancer patients received light pressure
effleurage massage, the deterioration of NK cell activity was decreased during
radiation therapy, and heart rate and systolic blood pressure were lowered.
And in [9] it is suggested that massage may be more effective than simple touch
in decreasing pain and improving mood immediately for patients with advanced
cancer because they may be touch-deprived by reason of social isolation or fear of
causing harm. These findings support offering massage for immediate symptom
relief and considering the potential therapeutic benefits of simple touch, which
could be provided by family members or hospice volunteers, as an adjunct to usual
care.
Also [10] showed a significant improvement in the eczema in the two groups of
children following therapy, but there was no significant difference in improvement
shown between the aromatherapy massage and massage only group. Thus there is
evidence that tactile contact between mother and child benefits the symptoms of
atopic eczema.
In [11], when patients with burn received 5 weeks of massage therapy, the
measures including the pain, itching, and state anxiety were collected on the first
and last days of the study period. The authors observed that massage therapy
4 1 Introduction

reduced all these measures from the first to the last day of this study. In most
cultures, massage treatments are used to alleviate a wide range of symptoms.
Although health professionals agree on the use of non-pharmacologic method for
patients with burns, these applications are not yet common.
These studies are all alike in the point that patients’ pain and fear is relieved by
the action to be touched.
However [12] pointed out that massage alone or the application of compression
after a single session of lymphatic massage was ineffective for reducing lymph-
edema in women with arm lymphedema secondary to breast cancer. This study
shows a negative effect of massage to lymphedema.

1.5 Facial Massage

Timur Tashan and Kafkasli [13] reported that a 15-minute massage applied with
almond oil during pregnancy reduced the development of striae gravidarum, but
using bitter almond oil had no effect on this in itself. It is recommended that
pregnant women be informed about the positive effects of massage applied with
almond oil early during their pregnancy. This study shows a good effect of massage
to skin. Tomoko et al. [14] concluded that the facial massage might refresh the
subjects by reducing their psychological distress and activating the sympathetic
nervous system. Ejidu [15] reported that both facial and foot treatments were
equally effective in subjects’ vital signs and reducing subjective levels of alertness
during the interventions, with face massage marginally better at producing sub-
jective sleepiness. Khanna and Datta Gupta [16] gave a warning that facial massage
may have some adverse effects; although there are several subjective benefits with
facial beauty treatment, there may be immediate side-effects, such as erythema and
edema, as well as delayed problems, such as dermatitis and acneiform eruption, in
about one-third of patients.
As seen from the above, the results of the massage research show some effects
to various subjects, however one common factor in all of these studies is the power
of human hands. Abraham Verghese [17] says the medical technology that will
make the most progress in the next decade is the power of the human hand.

References

1. Eric M, Richard S, Stephen PS (eds) The Oxford handbook of philosophy of cognitive

science. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010
2. Chang A, O’Sullivan C, (2008) An audio-haptic aesthetic framework influenced by visual
theory. Springer-Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg, pp 70–80
3. Takeo Co. Ltd, (ed) Haptic: takeo paper show 2004. Asahi Shinbun, Tokyo, 2004
4. Peirce FT (1930) The ‘handle’ of cloth as a measurable quantity. J Text Inst 21:T377–T416
References 5

5. Kawabata S(1980) Examination of effect of basic mechanical properties of fabrics on fabric

hand. In: Mechanics of flexible fiber assemblies, NATO Advanced Study Institute Series.
Sijthoff and Noordhoff, Germantown, pp 405–417
6. Kawabata S (1980) The standardization and analysis of handle evaluation, 2nd edn. The
Textile Machinery Society of Japan, Osaka
7. Hayakawa Tomohiko, Matsui Shigeru, Watanabe Junji (2010) Classification method of
tactile textures using onomatopoeias. J Virtual Reality Jpn 15(3):487–490
8. Billhult A, Lindholm C, Gunnarsson R, Stener-Victorin E (2009) The effect of massage on
immune function and stress in women with breast cancer–A randomized controlled trial.
Auton Neurosci Basic Clin 150(1–2):111–115
9. Kutner JS, Smith MC, Corbin L, Hemphill L, Benton K, Karen Mellis B, Beaty B, Felton S,
Yamashita TE, Bryant LL, Fairclough DL (2008) Massage therapy versus simple touch to
improve pain and mood in patients with advanced cancer. Ann Intern Med 149:369-379
10. Anderson C, Lis-Balchin M, Kirk-Smith M (2000) Evaluation of massage with essential oils
on childhood atopic eczema. Phytotherapy Research Phytother Res 14:452–456
11. Parlak Gürol A, Polat S, Akçay MN (2010) Itching, pain, and anxiety levels Are reduced with
massage therapy in burned adolescents. J Burn Care Res 31(3):429–432
12. Maher J, Refshauge K, Ward L, Paterson R, Kilbreath S (2012) Change in extracellular fluid
and arm volumes as a consequence of a single session of lymphatic massage followed by rest
with or without compression. Support Care Cancer 20:3079–3086
13. Tashan Sermin Timur, Kafkasli Ayse (2012) The effect of bitter almond oil and massaging on
striae gravidarum in primiparaous women. J Clin Nurs 21:1570–1576. doi:10.1111/j.1365-
2702.2012.04087.x
14. Tomoko H, Shingo K, Chihiro T, Mayumi N, Koichiro O (2008) The facial massage reduced
anxiety and negative mood status, and increased sympathetic nervous activity. Biomed Res
29(6):317–320
15. Ejidu Anna (2007) The effects of foot and facial massage on sleep induction, blood pressure,
pulse and respiratory rate: crossover pilot study. Complement Ther Clin Pract 13:266–275
16. Khanna Neena, Gupta Siddhartha Datta (2002) Rejuvenating facial massage–a bane or boon?
Int J Dermatol 41:407–410
17. Abraham Verghese (2011) A doctor’s touch. http://www.ted.com/talks/abraham_verghese_a_
doctor_s_touch.html
18. Pan N (2007) Quantification and evaluation of human tactile sense towards fabrics. Int J Des
Nat 1:48–60
Chapter 2
Tactile Workshop

Abstract Tactile sense has been considered important for education, deep
understanding of our selves, and sharing personal emotion caused by tactile sense
with each other. We introduce tactile workshops and ‘‘Haptica bodyworkshop’’,
which we have been developed.

Keywords Tactile workshop

Buruno Munarri
Somaesthetics
Richard



Shusterman Haptica Bodyworkshop

There is a workshop with tactile sense paying attention to the change of the tactile
sense and it also changes the human sense. For example, Italian designer, Bruno
Munari educates children through the sense of touch in the tactile workshops [1].
In his workshop, various types of haptic materials are given to children and they
express their emotion provoked by touching and combining these tactile materials.
Richard Shusterman has been proposed the somaesthetics, it is a new inter-
disciplinary field whose roots are in philosophical theory, somaesthetics offers an
integrative conceptual framework and a menu of methodologies not only for better
understanding our somatic experience, but also for improving the quality of our
bodily perception, performance, and presentation. Such heightened somatic
awareness and mastery offers benefits to many fields including design. Our
experience of ourselves and in our world is always embodied, and it involves
somatic responses and feelings that are typically unnoticed though they are
unavoidable and indispensable for our proficient function. We need a proper feel
for our tools in order to use them most effectively; and this includes the use of
one’s own body with using other tools. For the body is our indispensable tool of
tools, the necessary medium of our being, perception, action and self-presentation
in the world. By exploring the fundamental features of our embodied ways of
engaging the world and transforming it through action and construction, soma-
esthetics can provide useful insights and experiential skills to help designers
produce products and situations that provide more rewarding and pleasurable
experience [2].

Y. Suzuki and R. Suzuki, Tactile Score, 7

SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences and Technology,
DOI: 10.1007/978-4-431-54547-7_2, Ó The Author(s) 2014
8 2 Tactile Workshop

He has been organizing bodyworkshop as a certified practitioner of Feldenkrais

Method and a somatic therapist. He gives workshops on somaesthetics that include
practical exercises and demonstrations, but also has experience in treating different
cases of somatic disabilities.

2.1 Haptica Project

Authors (Suzuki and Suzuki) have been organizing the project focused on tactile
sense of massage, haptica project, since 2002 [3]; our challenge has been how
tactile sense is shared with others. In the most of massage, the tactile sense
produced by massage is shared only between the one who gives massage and the
one who receives it and it is difficult to share the tactile sense other than them.
Hence, we have been doing bodyworkshops of tactile sense produced by massage
and exploring the way to share the tactile sense with everyone.

2.1.1 Design of Bodyworkshop

In order to realize importance of tactile sense and reconsider it, we have developed
bodyworkshops of tactile sense through giving facial massage; since most people
are not interested in tactile sense in their daily lives, in every bodyworkshop we
start with a pre-workshop, which urges people to tactile sense. Then we ask
participants to make a pair with somebody and one person massages partner’s face
then exchanges the role and the person who received massage gives massage to the
partner next.

2.1.2 Example of Pre-workshop

Through experience of bodysorkshops, we have learnt the importance of pre-

workshop; in some bodyworkshops we omitted pre-workshops because the time
was limited or the required style of workshop was different from our ordinal style,
in such a case, every person tended to hesitate touching the partner’s face and it
took long time to start massage with a whole hand.
We have designed three types of pre-workshops;
(i) Play a game of tactile sense,
(ii) Do work with visual deprivation,
(iii) Create artworks related to tactile sense;
2.1 Haptica Project 9

Fig. 2.1 Pre-workshop:

Tools for the game of tactile
sense, a heavy chopsticks,
30 cm long and 500 g, b light
chopsticks, 50 cm long and
about 3 g, c object to be
carried on a plate, these tools
were produced by Rieko
Suzuki and they were used in
the Haptica Bodyworkshop,
at the TFT Salon in
Koishikawa Tokyo

(i) Play a game of tactile sense: we have designed various games, for example we
designed a ‘‘relay race’’ by carrying object one place to another; where a set of
objects on plates and various types of chopsticks are prepared; the size and the
weight of every object is different and they are put on plates, these plates are
placed at intervals of about one meter on a line and different types of chop-
sticks are placed beside each plate; a player requires to carry the first object on
the first plate by the prepared chopsticks to the second plate and then carry the
second object on the second plate to the third plate; when the player reach the
last plate, loops back to the start point doing the same thing. Prior to Pre-work,
two or more persons make a team, and they compete as a team in this relay
game (Fig. 2.1).
(ii) In this pre-workshop: every participant puts a bandage over their eyes and eats
a snack in a bowl with chopsticks; where snacks have various haptic feels of
materials and they do not have strong favors in order to give concentration of
participants’ tactile sense, we ask participants to use chopsticks with visual
deprivation so they have to concentrate on selecting and carrying a snack to
their mouth without seeing or sniffing anything about the selected snack, then
they have to concentrate their tactile senses of tongue or teeth on it to know
what the selected snack is.

Participants can see and touch it, and also lie on it. These artworks were
produced by Rieko Suzuki (Haptica bodyworkshop in Honen-in Temple, Kyoto,
March 2005).
(iii) Before the pre-workshop: we created artworks for tactile sense and exhibited
them in the workshop place. Participants can enjoy art exhibition not only
seeing but also touching them; then every participant expresses impressions
of each artwork by writing a poet, drawing a picture or creating a sculpture
(Fig. 2.2).
10 2 Tactile Workshop

Fig. 2.2 Pre-workshop with

artworks: (upper) Participants
are sitting around the
artwork; (lower) an artwork
for the pre-workshop, which
is made of cotton and gel, and
whose diameter is 1 M

2.1.3 Main Workshop

After the pre-workshop, we proceed on to the main workshop that we massage

face; in order to induce participants’ concentrations to massage, the most effective
way is to ask participants to make an ‘‘image’’ of massage; for example, looking
up at the surface of the water from the bottom of the deep sea. After the workshop,
we asked them to express the image of the way they massaged by drawing pictures
and making sculptures with paper clay. We also asked those who were massaged
to express the image form the massage in the same way. Then the pair can share
the tactile sense just between them in the massage by exhibiting their images to the
other participants (Fig. 2.3).
2.2 Bodyworkshops for Education of Children 11

Fig. 2.3 Main workshop:

(upper) from Haptica
bodyworkshop in Honen-in
Temple, Kyoto, (lower) from
the invited workshop in the
International Symposium on
Multi-sensory Design,
Nagoya University, 2006

2.2 Bodyworkshops for Education of Children

We have developed bodyworkshop and explored the way to share the tactile sense
of massage with every workshop participant and we found that expressing the
tactile sense by creating artworks such as drawing a picture or making a sculpture
with paper clay is effective to share the tactile sense. The most effective way was
to require participants to create an image of the massage before doing the main
workshop and in order to induce such image from participants, pre-workshop was
useful. And it was important that after the main workshop, every pair those who
were massaged to express the image and impression of the massage by showing
their artworks (Fig. 2.4).
From experiences of bodyworkshops, we have realized the tactile sense reflects
personality and mental status of mind, hence we believe that enrichment of tactile
sense is an indispensable factor in education; as we mentioned Bruno Munarri had
also pointed it out. Hence we have done workshops for children; in a elementary
school (Hongo Elementary School, Tokyo), we explained the importance of tactile
sense by giving a short lecture as the pre-workshop and did the main workshop,
12 2 Tactile Workshop

Fig. 2.4 (upper) A

participant of the workshop
who was massaged expressed
its tactile impression by
drawing the painting and
share with other participants
by showing it, where a person
next to her was her partner
and she gave massage to her.
(lower) the sculpture made of
paper clay and a poet that
were produced by a
participant; they expressed
the image of massage by the
participant

where we met few students who were not able to touch their partner; they did not
smile or laugh very much from the begging of the workshop, however as the
workshop was excited, they attempted to touch their partner and finally they could
massage partner’s face with their whole palms then they made a big laugh. After
the workshop, every student expressed his or her impression of massage by
drawing a picture, where a student expressed his feeling by drawing and writing
the kanji character; he explained that he felt sadness from the massage and it
looked like seeing a blue moon in the sky all alone at night (Fig. 2.5).
We have mainly developed bodyworkshops with massage but we also have
organized workshop by using artworks for tactile sense, where we have created
artworks to induce the tactile sense by toughing them, for example we created
artworks with using various sizes of balls; they were placed in a dark tunnel and
participants entered into the tunnel and crawled along it; the size of balls increased
from small to large, near the entrance of the tunnel, the size of balls were 2 or 3 cm
and the size of balls increased, and at the exit of the tunnel, there was a large ball
whose diameter was about 1 meter; hence participants could sense the different
sizes of balls with their whole body (Fig. 2.6).
2.2 Bodyworkshops for Education of Children 13

Fig. 2.5 Haptica

bodyworkshop in Hongo
Elementary School, Tokyo;
(upper) a student massages
his partner; we asked every
student to close their eyes
while giving and receiving
the massage in order to
concentrate on tactile sense.
(lower) After the workshop,
students express the
impression of tactile sense by
drawing a picture

Fig. 2.6 Bodyworkshop at

Aichi Children’s Center, this
artwork (sensing small and
large with your whole body)
was produced by Rieko
Suzuki
14 2 Tactile Workshop

References

1. Munari B (1985) I laboratory tattili. Edizioni Corraini, Bologna

2. Shusterman R (2013): Somaesthetics. In: Soegaard M, Dam M, Friis R (eds) The encyclopedia
of human-computer interaction, 2nd edn. Aarhus: The Interaction Design Foundation.
Available online at http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/somaesthetics.html
3. Suzuki R, Suzuki Y (2013) How to ‘‘share’’ the tactile sense?, a putative approach 302—308,
BookFrontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications.In: Intelligent interactive multimedia
systems and services, vol 254. pp 302–308
Chapter 3
Experiments Relating to Massage

Abstract Tactile sense has been investigated in neuroscience, molecular biology,

cognitive science, psychological physics and so on. These previous researchers
have not examined higher order cognition and its mechanisms such as massage. In
this chapter, we show our results on experiments about cognition of massage.

Keywords Cognition of massage
Psychological physics
Semantic differential

method

3.1 Psycho-Physical Experiment of the Tactile Perception

Existing studies on tactile perception have centered on the generation of tactile

stimulation (i.e. receiving end) but not much of giving end, i.e. how to touch has
not been discussed. Thus, we have conducted a psychological experiment [1] on
the change in the sensibility corresponding to different touching manners.
Right index and middle fingers of 11 subjects were stimulated with abrasive
papers by the examiner, and the differences of coarseness that the subjects were able
to detect (discrimination threshold) were monitored. Two were taken from the pool
of abrasive papers whose average grain sizes were 1, 3, 30, 5, 9, 12, 40 lm and used
as standard and comparison stimuli (Fig. 3.1). The number of test specimens was
56, which was all combinations, including that of identical grain size, were made.
During the course of the experiment, the subjects were blindfolded and the
examiner touched their right index and middle fingers simultaneously with the
abrasive papers in the test specimens. Then, the subjects selected coarser ones [2].
Generally, we use the cumulative normal distribution function as a fitting
function (Sigmoid curve) and we obtain the discrimination threshold as the
stimulus intensity whose dictation rate is 50 %. Since the fitness function of 1, 3,
30 and 40 lm were not sigmoid curves, we could not obtain discrimination
thresholds but could obtain when 5, 9 and 12 lm.

Y. Suzuki and R. Suzuki, Tactile Score, 15

SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences and Technology,
DOI: 10.1007/978-4-431-54547-7_3,  The Author(s) 2014
16 3 Experiments Relating to Massage

Fig. 3.1 Psychophysical

experiment, on the test
specimens there are abrasive
papers as standard and
comparison stimuli: A special
glove restricts flexibility of
fingers other than the index
and the middle fingers. The
examiner moves the test
specimens

• Condition 1: The examiner mechanically moves the test specimens (to an

electronic metronome).
• Condition 2: The examiner actively moves the test specimens.
In every grain size, discrimination thresholds of condition 2 were less than
condition 1. Based on the analyses on the discrimination thresholds and Weber
ratio (discrimination threshold/standard stimulus, Fig. 3.2), the discrimination
sensitivity under Condition 2 was higher than Condition 1 (Table 3.2), suggesting
that the smaller difference could be perceived when the subjects were touched
actively, even when the same set of stimuli were used.
T test of difference in averages of condition 1 and 2 indicates statistical sig-
nificance (T value was 2.973 [ 2.920: degree of freedom was 2, two-tailed test and
significance level was 10 %). The average of miss-discrimination (in 56 test
specimens) of condition 1 and 2 were 6.17 and 5.27, respectively. We confirmed
that this difference had statistical significance, where T value was 1.928 [ 1.812:
degree of freedom was 10, two tailed test and significance level was 10 %
(Table 3.1).

Fig. 3.2 Weber ratios of 1.6

psychophysical experiment 1.4
with condition 1 and 2; the
horizontal axis denotes 1.2
standard stimulation and the 1
vertical axis denotes Weber Condition 1
0.8
ratios
0.6 Condition 2

0.4
0.2
0
5 9 12
3.2 Psychonomics Approach 17

Table 3.1 Discrimination threshold

Standard stimulus 5 9 12 Average
Condition 1 6.697 8.0168 6.1193 6.9443
Condition 2 4.597 5.7352 5.5769 5.3030
Difference 2.100 2.2817 0.5423 1.6403

3.2 Psychonomics Approach

An examiner who is not a professional massage therapist touched the tactile

stimuli and then performed circular massage on the cheeks of the subjects based on
the image of the stimuli [4]. The tactile stimuli were balls with smooth, rough and
fluffy tactile sensation (Fig. 3.3).
The examiner made sure that the hand movements were identical after touching
any of the stimuli (Fig. 3.4). The subjects filled out questionnaires to give the
impression of each massage. An examiner massaged the stimuli for one minute,
and then massaged the subjects for two minutes. Subjects gave the impression of
each massage by choosing an integer scaled betweens-3 and 3 for each pair of
adjective.
Perception experiment of massage by the Semantic Differential (SD) method
[3] and the psychological technique for impression analyses was conducted to
investigate higher-order tactile cognition. In the SD method, the connotative
meaning of concepts was measured by asking a respondent to choose where his or
her position located in a scale between two bipolar adjectives. We used the fol-
lowing adjectives (Table 3.2).
We then examined the result using principal component analysis. The first
principal component was the characteristics of strength of touch contribution was
33.27 % (strong–weak, positive–negative), the second principal component was
impression of touch contribution was 14.39 % (hard–soft, gentle–fear, sleepy–
wide awake, intense–quiet and desirable–not desirable, pleasant–unpleasant).

Fig. 3.3 Balls that give

tactile stimuli: from left to
right tactile sensation of
smooth, fluffy and rough
18 3 Experiments Relating to Massage

Fig. 3.4 The examiner

performs circular massage on
the cheeks of the subject
based on the image of the
stimuli through touching a
ball

We obtained statistical significant pairs of adjectives in the questionnaires by

the analysis of variance and multiple comparison test then examine which tactile
stimuli corresponded to balls with smooth, rough or fluffy tactile sensation. The
result of the Multiple Comparison tests suggested that significant difference
between smooth and fluffy and also rough and fluffy. The difference in tactile
impressions gave subtle difference in massage, which was perceived by the sub-
jects, despite the identical hand movement. Based on the above, it has been
suggested that active massage could heighten tactile reception with the perception
of subtle difference in the tactile stimuli.

Table 3.2 Pairs of adjectives Warm Chilly

used in SD method analysis
Hot Cold
Heavy Light
Hard Soft
Pleasant Unpleasant
Strong Weak
Gentle Fear
Sleepy Wide awake
Quick Slow
Intense Quiet
Positive Negative
Painful Not painful
Desirable Not desirable
3.3 Related Works and Discussion 19

3.3 Related Works and Discussion

It has been pointed out ‘‘the way of touching’’ with enhancing the perception of
tactile sense; For example, the sheet metal inspectors in automobile industries
know that the knitted work gloves help the perception of surface undulation [6].
Sano et al. have found three mechanisms of touch enhancing on work gloves. The
first one is a lever mechanism of knitted gloves. The second one is a buckling
phenomenon of the glove, which generates the tactile stimulus to the articular
joint. The third one is the noise-mediated improvements, namely a stochastic
resonance, which enhances the detectability of a weak stimulus [6]. And they have
proposed a device for enhancing tactile perception of surface undulation. This
device, which we call a ‘‘tactile contact lens,’’ is composed of a sheet and
numerous pins arranged on one side of the sheet. Our experimental results show
that a small bump on a surface can be detected more accurately through this device
than by bare fingers and than through a flat sheet.
They also analyzed the phenomenon provoked by this simple device and sug-
gested two causes of this phenomenon. One is a lever-like behavior of the pins,
which converts the local inclination of the object surface into the tangential dis-
placement on the skin surface. The other is the spatial aliasing effect resulting from
the discrete contact, by which the temporal change on the skin surface displace-
ment is efficiently transduced into the temporal change in the skin tissue strain.
The result of the analysis is discussed in relation to other sensitivity-enhancing
materials, tactile sensing mechanisms, and tactile/haptic display devices [5].
In the related works, ‘‘how to touch’’ is changed mechanically by using texture
of fabric or behaviors of ‘‘pins’’ on the sheet of the tactile contact lens. In our
former experiment, we examined the difference of tactile perception when we
changed how to touch between the ‘‘passive touch’’ and ‘‘active touch’’; in the
passive touch experiment, an examiner touched materials in the equal time
interval, while in active touch experiment, touched materials freely to examine
their surface roughness and it was shown that the active touch enhanced the tactile
perception. This result indicates how to touch changes the tactile perception and
we may be able to enhance the tactile perception by the way of touching.
And in the latter experiment, we showed that images in the mind of a person
who gave a touch would change the way of touching and the difference of images
may be perceptible by a subject (a person to be touched). This is a preliminary
result and it should be carefully examined in more detail to conclude it scientifi-
cally; while in a beauty salon or massage school, the importance of having such
images in massage has been confirmed empirically; for example, it is difficult for
new students to massage the face of the subject with strong pressure, they try to
press the face hard however their power only reaches the arms but does not reach
hands. In such a case, we give an image; at first we ask them to touch the face with
their normal pressure and press it a bit harder as if they go down the stairs; by
having the image of going down the stairs most students are able to press the face
hard.
20 3 Experiments Relating to Massage

Not only in the scene of a beauty salon or school but also experiences in
bodyworkshops, we have confirmed that it is important to have images on massage
but these images change in both ‘‘how to touch’’ and ‘‘how to be touched’’, so it
has been difficult to describe massages clearly when we teach and investigate
them. It is difficult to treat such personal images by others, so we do not treat it
directly but examine it indirectly by describing massages in detail, then we have
developed such a method for describing them or tactile sense. We introduce the
method in the next chapter.

References

1. Stevens SS (1957) On the psychophysical law. Psychol Rev 64(3):153–181

2. Inaba S, Suzuki Y (2007) Research on the perception of active stimulation in human tactile
sense. Graduation thesis of School of Information Science, Nagoya University
3. Snider JG, Osgood CE (1969) Semantic differential technique: a sourcebook. Aldine, Chicago
4. Umemura Mariko, Suzuki Yasuhiro (2011) Presentation of several haptic stimuli using
massage and psychological study on the discrimination sensitivity on those stimuli. Nagoya
University, Graduation thesis of School of Information Science
5. Kikuuwe R, Sano A, Mochiyama H, Takesue N, Tsunekawa K, Suzuki S, Fujimoto H (2004)
Sensors, 2004. In: Proceedings of IEEE digital object identifier: 10.1109/
ICSENS.2004.1426219. vol 2, pp 535–538
6. Sano A, Tanaka Y, Fujimoto H (2010) 1P1-F11 three mechanisms of touch enhancing on work
gloves : lever mechanism, buckling, and stochastic resonance. In: The robotics and
mechatronics conference 2010, 1P1-F11, The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers
Chapter 4
Tactile Score, ‘‘Syoku-fuTM’’

Abstract In order to describe and design tactile sense generated by such as

massage, we have developed Tactile score with reference to Music score. We
introduce the ‘‘history’’ of Tactile score, Shoku-fuTM (‘‘shoku’’ stands for tactile
sense and ‘‘fu’’, a score in Japanese); why and how we have obtained the Tactile
score. Various types of Tactile scores have been proposed and applied not only to
describe and design massage but also to compose music, Emotional engineering,
haptic design and so on. In this chapter, we introduce basics of Tactile sense and
how to describe massage by using it.

Keywords History of Tactile score Basics of Tactile score Describe massage

Syoku-fu

4.1 The Way to ‘‘Tactile Score’’

Since when we began beauty therapists, we have been creating various massages
and techniques. There were some massages that didn’t satisfy customers. We
learned massages that were symmetrical, regular, planar, constant rate, and without
thinking about dimensions or changes of pressures at a beauty school where we
had professional trainings. Those were massages with a focus on the press of
acupressure points and the flow of lymph. Thus, when we opened our own beauty
salon, we massaged customers as we learned at the school. However, no matter
how much we made efforts, we didn’t show much beauty effects or couldn’t attract
more customers. We occasionally got high beauty effects, but we didn’t understand
why we got such effects.
Things went on so for a long time, and we felt the limits of our abilities as
beauty therapists and started thinking to go out of the business. Though we didn’t
understand the reason, there was a case that our massage showed a high beauty
effect and a customer was very satisfied with it. We empirically knew the massage
method that gave high beauty effects, and then we tried to pursue the method.

Y. Suzuki and R. Suzuki, Tactile Score, 21

SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences and Technology,
DOI: 10.1007/978-4-431-54547-7_4, Ó The Author(s) 2014
22 4 Tactile Score, ‘‘Syoku-fuTM’’

Fig. 4.1 The tactile sense of massage with figures like hieroglyphics

From about this time, we started describing the tactile sense of our massage with
figures like hieroglyphics (Fig. 4.1). Hereafter we refer to this figure as the
‘‘Tactile word’’. We use words in order to code an object and decode the words
and the combination of them for replicating massages.
First we extremely slowed the regular massage speed that we learned at the
school. The regular massage was mechanical and inorganic but we did contrary
massage such as artistic and organic. We imitated calligraphy, and so regarded our
palms as brushes and massage oil as India ink, then tried to massage as if we drew
characters. We massaged customers’ faces very slowly as if we connected dots as
to calligraphy. Then customers got angry and claimed that the massage was
unpleasant.
We thought that the reason this unsuccessful massage didn’t give pleasure to
customers was that it was too slow to convey the rhythm. Then, we tried to create a
massage which we could feel a rhythm. We put a bit pressure with fingers and
changed the speed to music in order to convey a rhythm through the massage. We
used hole palms in the massage referred to calligraphy, next we massaged a face as
if it was a stage and danced our fingers on the face. However, we received negative
reviews again. Customers claimed that there was no tactile sense even grotesque
incoming sensation. We thought we massaged them quite rhythmically, but we
found that people who received massage didn’t feel any rhythm.
All these new trials were unpopular with customers and the number of customers
had fallen. So we were forced to get back to the regular massage we learned at the
school. We went back to the beginning of creating new massage and felt at a loss.
Then we listed the elements of our own hands movements with tactile words in
order to objectively see what consisted our massage. We noticed that the use of
4.1 The Way to ‘‘Tactile Score’’ 23

tactile words made us think the combinations of massage techniques and the order
of massage elements objectively. We came to be able to do a kind of computing
such as addition, subtraction, and assembly with assembling basic elements of the
massage such as the differences among right and left, pressure, contact areas of
palms, and speed as if we assemble the parts of the jigsaw puzzle.
Through a trial and error process using tactile words, we began to see the most
important elements are the dimension, pressure, and speed in Face TherapieTM
which is our massage technique. Also we discovered that we could construct a
spatial massage with the combination of these elements. Although a face is three
dimensional, a massage is consisted of two-dimensional movements over the
surface. Multi-dimensional changes, such as the contact area, pressure and speed
among others were perceived from there.
No matter how we move our hands in three dimensions, we can’t go into
between skins, therefore, massage is basically planar. Even though there is asperity
on a face, hands are moved with being attached firmly to the face, in other words,
the hand movement itself is planar to the face. Therefore, we began to see that we
could make the massage spatial with changing the pressure and speed of the
massage as well as the hand movement. Then, we moved into the massage that we
focused simply on the pressure change attaching little importance to the hand
movement. However, customers claimed that they felt funny.
We learned that a stroke was one of the important elements of massage from
this failure. We also found that the important point was not any one element but
the massage constitutive priority. We noticed that the origin and development of
these tactile words were similar to that of music scores. Then we created and
proposed the tactile score. The tactile score has been variously improved in
basically the same frame since then.
The creation of the tactile score made it possible to record the massage that
gives good feeling in detail. The description capability of the tactile words is low,
so the reproduced massage differs among people. However, anyone can reproduce
the massage that has almost the same texture with the tactile score, and we can also
create complicated massages.

4.2 Tactile Score, Syoku-fuTM

We apply the scoring way to the tactile note to describe massage [1, 2]. The
pressure intensity is expressed as a staff. Two Kanji characters in Japanese express
‘‘Shoku fu’’; ‘‘shoku’’ stands for tactile sense and ‘‘fu’’, a score.
(Figure 4.2a) We set the line sandwiched in between two upside-down triangles
as the basic pressure, and then move it up and down to create a pressure variation,
for example, in describing the pressure when we touch something important.
(Figure 4.2b) The whole note represents speed, and it also includes a movement
of a stroke (Fig. 4.4).
24 4 Tactile Score, ‘‘Syoku-fuTM’’

Fig. 4.2 The ‘‘staff

notation’’ of tactile score

(Figure 4.2c) Based on our experiences, we found that we could give more
comfort by beating time to the pressure and speed. Here the beat is quadruple time,
but triple and double time are also acceptable (Fig. 4.4).
Next we number the areas of the palm to describe the size of the dimension
(Fig. 4.3), in addition, we encode the spatial position and the movement of the
stroke like a curve, line, dot, and each size of them like small, medium, and large
as tactile steps like sol-fa of a musical score on a face (Fig. 4.3). Then, we classify
the speeds of whole notes described above.
As well as whole notes in Fig. 4.2, you can also classify double notes, quarter
notes, eight notes, and dots (Fig. 4.4). In staff notation of the tactile note, we define
the third line as the basic pressure; the basic pressure is the pressure when we hold
a baby or an expensive jewel very carefully. Hence, the basic pressure is not
defined absolutely but may change from person to person or for different types of
massage. For the tactile note, we define the pressure intensity as the difference in

Fig. 4.3 Left Strokes of massage on a face; these strokes are obtained from massage experiences
in aesthetic salons; strokes that pass uncomfortable areas have been excluded. Right Usage of
parts of the hand
4.2 Tactile Score, Syoku-fuTM 25

Fig. 4.4 Tactile score of whole, half, quarter, eighth notes

pressure from the basic pressure. We define stronger pressure as downward from
the third line in the staff notation and weaker pressure as upward from the third
line.
We also define the part of the hand and the kind of strokes used in massage (see
Figs. 4.2, 4.3). For example, the fingertip to the first joint is 1, the second joint is 2,
the third joint is 3, the upper part of the palm is 4, the center of the palm is 5 and
the bottom of the palm is 6; when we use from a fingertip to the third joint, this is
denoted as ‘‘1–3’’. For massage strokes, we analyze the method of massage, Face
TherapieTM and extract strokes; we symbolize each stroke as A, a, N, n, etc. For
example, the symbol A stands for the massage stroke of drawing a circle on the
cheek. In this notation, for example, A5 illustrates drawing a circle on the cheek
with the center of the palm.
The tactile score in this contribution is the basic version in which each musical
note denotes massage with both hands and we denote a gap in hand motion with a
special mark above the staff notation;
1 denotes both hands moving at the same time,
2 indicate a small gap between hands and
3 indicate a large gap between hands.
Tactile score (as in the Fig. 4.5) has special symbols: 1 denotes both hands
moving at the same time, 2 indicates a small gap between hands, and 3 indicates a
large gap between hands, the Sulla like marks illustrate a unit component of
massage, the integral-like marks illustrate releasing pressure, and the breath-like
mark corresponds to a short pause in massage, much like a breath in playing
music. Schematic expression illustrates the change of the pressure and contact
area, where the size of each cycle illustrates the contact area and the solid line
illustrates the pressure change.
And in this tactile score, at the first count in the beginning part, A5, circles are
drawn on both sides of the cheeks using the center of the palm with weaker
pressure than the basic pressure, at the second count, the hands are moved to the

Fig. 4.5 Tactile score and special symbols

26 4 Tactile Score, ‘‘Syoku-fuTM’’

tails of the eyes and small circles are drawn using the center of the palm while
keeping the same pressure as the first count and, at the third and fourth counts, the
hands are moved to both sides of the cheeks and cycles are drawn using the
fingertips with a stronger pressure than the basic pressure.

References

1. Akiba F, Suzuki Y (2007) Sociable aesthetics of bodily senses and the ‘‘haptica’’ projects. In:
Proceedings of IIIrd Mediterranean Congress of Aesthetics, pp 13–16
2. Akiba F, Suzuki Y (2012) The computational aesthetics of the tactile sense and its significance
for philosophical aesthetics. In: 22nd Biennial Congress of The International Association of
Empirical Aesthetics (IAEA), National Taiwan Normal University, pp 558–561, 22–25
Chapter 5
Investigation of Massage by Using Tactile
Score

Abstract In order to explore ‘‘hidden’’ language inside the massage technique, we

investigate the construction of massage based on ‘‘basic’’ technique that we
extracted from massages; and we examine each ‘‘image of massage’’ by using
Semantic Differential method (SD method) and show massages composed of these
basic techniques and having rules of composition.

Keywords Language of massage
Semantic differential method

By using a tactile score, we can analyze the standard massage used in Face
TherapieTM. We examined the method and confirmed that it can be broken down
into 42 kinds of basic massage components [1, 2]. Through this investigation, we
can describe various massages by combining these basic components. To char-
acterize these basic components, we use the semantic differential (SD) method. We
also asked the inventor of Face TherapieTM to be the respondent in our SD method
analysis.
In this analysis, we used nine pairs of adjectives as follows (Table 5.1): the
respondent chose an integer scaled between -3 and 3 for each basic component.
We then examined the result using principal component analysis.
The first principal component was the characteristics of touch (soft–large,
blow–wrap), the second principal component was the time variation of touch
(disappearing–releasing), and the third principal component was the pressure
change (heavy–sharp). By using these principal components, we classify 42 kinds
of basic components into six groups, named I: light pressure, II middle pressure, III
heavy pressure, IV light flow, V keen flow, and VI soft flow. (See Figs. 5.1, 5.2).
The characterization of basic components corresponds to the possession of
drawing materials for basic motifs of massage. For example, when painting, we
compose an artwork by using drawing materials to create a beautiful form. Tactile
stimuli do not have visual or auditory forms for which we can judge their beauty.
Hence we define the beauty of massage as comforts. For a beauty salon, it is
required that massages can improve the skin condition or physical states of the
body and attract customers; otherwise, the business fails. Hence, we define a
massage that has kept a high client satisfaction level for ten years as a ‘‘beautiful

Y. Suzuki and R. Suzuki, Tactile Score, 27

SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences and Technology,
DOI: 10.1007/978-4-431-54547-7_5, Ó The Author(s) 2014
28 5 Investigation of Massage by Using Tactile Score

Table 5.1 Pairs of adjectives Soft Hard

used in SD method analysis
Light Heavy
Large Small
Sharp Blunt
Disappearing Remaining
Inhibitory Releasing
Calm Stable
Hollow Blow
Dub Wrap

Fig. 5.1 Six groups of 42

kinds of basic components,
named I: light pressure, II
middle pressure, III heavy
pressure, IV light flow, V
keen flow, and VI soft flow

Fig. 5.2 Map of the 42 basic

components in the principal
component space, where the
horizontal axis illustrates the
first and second principal
components and the vertical
axis illustrates the third
principal components
5 Investigation of Massage by Using Tactile Score 29

Fig. 5.3 The result of a time

series of basic massages
components, where each
bidirectional arrows
illustrates possible transitions
between basic groups. Groups
IV and V (indicated by
cycles) are intermediate
groups; they mediate
transitions between groups

massage’’. We have studied various massages and found that comfortable mas-
sages are likely to be beautiful massages. The standard massage has been obtained
through embodiment of such comfortable massages, so we analyze it. We
described the standard massage using tactile scores and transformed it into basic
components I to VI; and, we analyzed the massage as a time series of basic
components. We found that the basic components of IV (middle pressure) and V
(keen flow) are used as intermediate components; for example, for a massage
starting from I (light pressure) to III (heavy pressure), since there is no direct
transition path from I to III, it has to go through IV or V such as I ? IV ? III or
I ? V ? III. This result indicates that in order to compose a massage, there is the
principle of composing basic techniques (Fig. 5.3).

References

1. Suzuki Y, Watanabe J, Suzuki R (2012) Tactile score, a knowledge media of tactile sense for
creativity. In: Watanabe T (ed) Smart innovation, systems and technologies vol 14, no.1,
Springer Verlag, Berlin, pp 579–589
2. Suzuki R, Watanabe J, Suzuki Y (2013) Classification of technical primitive images in the
massage described with tactile score, transaction of the virtual reality society of japan, vol.3
No. 13 (to appear)
Chapter 6
Method of Composing Massage

Abstract We have explored how to compose massages in beauty treatments by

using Tactile score; it leads us to deep understandings about tactile sense and how
to design massage. Tactile sense has language and we use it in our daily lives such
as tapping someone, mother’s gentle touch to a baby or children and so on. And we
have obtained a method for composing Tactile score. In this chapter we introduce a
method for ‘‘composing’’ massage by using Tactile score.

Keywords Method for composing Tactile score
Language of tactile sense

Though we created the tactile score, we couldn’t receive positive feedback from
customers regarding the complicated massage with the tactile score. They claimed
that they felt a strange sensation and didn’t quite understand that massage. We
learned that a comfortable massage was more than just a complicated massage.
Through this experience, we have been investigating how to compose Tactile score
and we required deeper understanding on what is Tactile Sense [1].
The important thing for a comfortable massage is to develop a certain pattern.
As the result of trial and error in creating a massage for high customer satisfaction,
we discovered that the massage evaluated as comfortable was complicated and
understandable. If a customer receives monotonous and repetitive massage, he/she
gets bored, and when he/she is massaged with random pattern, he/she usually feels
uncomfortable.
Experiences show that all the massages that give customers comfortable feel-
ings and satisfaction have some kind of regularity. In general, if the composition is
well organized, the complexity tends to be proportional to the comfort. The above
experiences suggest the linguistic aspect of tactile score.

Y. Suzuki and R. Suzuki, Tactile Score, 31

SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences and Technology,
DOI: 10.1007/978-4-431-54547-7_6, Ó The Author(s) 2014
32 6 Method of Composing Massage

6.1 Language of Tactile Sense

Tactile perception conveys different messages from speech language [1]. When
one is patted on the shoulder once, he/she might think of accidental collision, yet
when patted twice, it has meaning and he/she interprets it as someone has called.
Also, mothers gently tap babies at steady rhythm in caressing; the steady rhythm
evokes the sense of security in babies.
In other words, counts and rhythm are important in tactile perception; a single
circular stroke could not be distinguished from a mere rubbing, while more than
double strokes would be recognized as massage. So this ‘‘(more than) double
strokes’’ is an ‘‘alphabet ‘‘of a language of tactile sense and a set composed of
these alphabets is a ‘‘word’’; a massage is composed of these words as if a sen-
tence. A poet is composed of sentences and these sentences generate ‘‘rhythm’’;
likewise a poet, sentences composed of tactile sense words also generate rhythm.
As mothers’ gently tap, steady rhythm added meaning and sense of security to
massage so such steady rhythm would be considered as measures in music.
Empirically, we have found that many subjects like massages composed of Tactile
scores with quadruple measures, so when we compose a Tactile score, basic
elements in 4 counts are used as one unit of massage.
By giving a rhythm on a tactile sense, we can create ‘‘impressions’’; a rhythm of
touching gives a ‘‘theme’’ on the impression provoked by tactile sense, where the
theme is the expression through tactile sense such as small-large, fast-slow, line-
curve and so on; if a sequence of massage strokes starts from small circles then
moves to large circles and small circles again, a subject would feel small and large.
Let us consider a ‘‘jelly’’ as a simplified model of someone’s ‘‘face’’; because it
allows vibrations from outside caused by massage to pass through easily; if your
vibrations to the jelly variously changes due to the combination of the strength of
the touch, the width of the contact area and the speed of the hand then the
movement of the jelly is changed and in some cases it generates rhythms; such
rhythms would provoke various tactual stimulations. Persons who are touched/
massaged are able to sense such various tactile stimulations as different ‘‘textures’’
likewise gentle, cold, solid, soft etc. Tactual textures of fabrics or materials have
been investigated well as we have addressed in the Chap. 1; the most crucial
difference of tactual texture in massage is that the texture emerges from ‘‘spa-
tiotemporal stream’’ of tactile stimulations; in tactual texture of fabrics or mate-
rials, spatiotemporal combinations of tactile stimulations have not been considered
very much.
We suppose that our image caused by tactile sense emerges from the temporal
relationship; we always compare the tactile sense in the past and at the present. If
we touch something hard, and then touch something harder, we regard the former
as soft. So, the image will be determined by comparison of what/how we touch in
the past and at the present; hence we can generate the tactile sense created by
mother’s hands by pairing such as hardness and softness and can generate a rhythm
of tactile sense by designing the pair of tactile senses.
6.1 Language of Tactile Sense 33

Fig. 6.1 A variety of

pressure of hands and speed
of hand movements. 1 Rub
the subject hard, 2 Rub it
little weaker than 1, 3 Hold
its muscle, 4 Hold it a little
weaker than 3, 5 Touch it
lightly as if one touches
downy hair

In the previous chapter, we have investigated massages and found that a

massage has structural composition of tactile senses as if languages; if we tap
someone two times to stop someone and if there is time lag between the first and
second tap and the difference is 4 or 5 s, the person who was tapped would not be
able to understand why you have tapped because both ‘‘tactically understandable’’
and ‘‘not understandable’’ tactile compositions exist in this case.
The important thing when we create a rhythm is an existence of a theme, that is,
what a difference you want to tell the subject, and the same goes for pressure. If the
pressure on the subject stays the same, she/he can’t feel the pressure, but she/he
feels the pressure if she/he is pushed hard during being touched softly. As for the
speed, for example, when we move our hands back and forth in 10 s at first, next in
5 s, and then in 20 s, she/he feels a difference in speed (Fig. 6.1).
This makes a rhythm on the tactile sense with the theme of speed. In other
words, a rhythm includes various differences such as hardness, softness, pressure,
and speed. Combining the differences creates the expression of the tactile sense as
if weaving yarns that are different colors of texture creates a rhythm of a woven
fabric.
In addition, the rhythm of the tactile sense is created not only by tactual textures
but also ‘‘how to touch’’. For example, when we express softness by a tactile sense,
people try to touch softly; instead we touch with spreading and closing the fingers,
and alternate these two moves. When we close the fingers, we place pressure upon
the subject, and when we spread the fingers, we relieve the pressure so the
‘‘Softness’’ is produced by these moves. Touching softly and touching soft tactual
textures are two different things; even if the subject is a pin holder, we feel as if it
is smooth depending on the way of touching.
34 6 Method of Composing Massage

Fig. 6.2 An example of the

Tactile score of (i)

Fig. 6.3 An example of the

Tactile score of (ii)

Fig. 6.4 An example of the

Tactile score of (iii)

6.2 Exercise

Compose Tactile scores that express following themes

(i) weight,
(ii) size,
(iii) directions;
Hints: A ‘‘theme’’ in Tactile score is expressed by ‘‘differences’’; for example,
if the sequence of massage strokes starts from short lines then moves to long lines
and short lines again, where the ‘‘differences’’ are expressed by the length of
strokes so the theme of this Tactile score is ‘‘length.’’
Examples of Answers: The most important thing is how to create difference;
(i) In this Tactile score, ‘‘weight’’ is expressed by making difference in pressures;
light pressure in the first measure and heavier pressure in the second measure
(Fig. 6.2).
(ii) In this Tactile score, contact areas are enlarged in the second measure than
first measure; in order to express ‘‘size’’, we make differences in the size of
strokes by combining larger strokes than first measure (Fig. 6.3).
(iii) In this Tactile score, the type of strokes are changed from circular (A) to J
shaped (J). In order to express the directions of strokes, we changed the types
of strokes from circles to lines (Fig. 6.4).
the above Tactile scores are examples and you can freely compose Tactile score
as you like; the way of checking whether the composed Tactile score is right or
wrong is to massage yourself or someone following the composed Tactile score so
you can confirm your Tactile score expresses its theme or not.

Reference

1. Suzuki R, Suzuki Y (2013) Introduction of facetherapie (‘‘Facetherapie Nyumon,’’ in

Japanese), Syun-jyu-sya
Chapter 7
Future Tactile Sense

Abstract In this final chapter, we give another aspect of tactile sense and massage
from the view point of Natural computing, NC; NC is a interdisciplinary research
field relating to computer science, biology, chemistry and so on. An aim of NC is
to understand nature as algorithm: in the previous chapter, we showed that mas-
sages can be regarded as basic techniques and its composition, where we are also
able to regard basic techniques as ‘‘codes’’ and its composition as a ‘‘computer
program,’’ hence we can also consider a massage as a model of NC. We give a
novel ‘‘platform’’ for investigating and designing massage.

Keywords Natural computing
Computational aesthetics

There is a room for further scientific research into massage however many kinds of
massages have been improved and used all over the world from time immemorial
because massage effects have repeatability to some extent. As we described in the
chapter of Tactile score, the Tactile score was designed for increasing the
repeatability of the massage effects and describing the massage method.

7.1 Creating Tactile Sense as Natural Computing

Natural computing is a research area in computer science and it aims to understand

nature as algorithm; Natural computing has three main topics (i) computing with
natural media (DNA, chemistry, slime mold, etc.), (ii) bio-inspired computing, (iii)
Computational aesthetics. For example, DNA computing (computing with DNA)
was proposed in 1960’ and realized in 1994 [1] and has succeeded in Bio nano-
technology such as technologies for constructing Molecular robotics [2].
As the definition of computing, the Church-Turing thesis has been accepted; in
order to consider Natural computing, I expand this thesis to the basis of natural
computing and proposed a definition of computing as ‘‘an order of codes and its
execution’’ and we call an order of codes as a program; this program is processed
not only by a computer but also by natural things such as a person, molecule, etc.

Y. Suzuki and R. Suzuki, Tactile Score, 35

SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences and Technology,
DOI: 10.1007/978-4-431-54547-7_7, Ó The Author(s) 2014
36 7 Future Tactile Sense

In various researches of Natural computing, we have been extracted operable

codes from natural system and create a program by ordering these codes as well as
the computing with Turing Machine or computers.
For example T. Nakagaki et al. have been constructing the natural computing
system with slime mold for searching the shortest path search in a maze [3]. Since
slime molds dislike iron, they use iron to make obstructions and limit the move-
ment of slime mold and locate the bait at the exit of maze, where the amount of
bait is important; if the amount of bait is large, they does not need to search the
shortest path and if it is small, they will have the total amount of bait before they
change their shape, so in this natural computing system, the design of a maze made
of iron and the amount of bait are codes.
We have extracted basic techniques of a massage and described them by using
Tactile score; these basic massages correspond to ‘‘codes’’ and we can design an
‘‘order’’ of codes thus we can regard a massage as a kind of Natural computing,
where an order of codes corresponds to a program and a person executes the
program corresponds to a ‘‘computer’’ and the program is executed by a person
and a massage is generated [4].
As described above, we introduce right to the point of the tactile score. We have
been analyzing hand movements with making tactile score and creating new tactile
senses in order to find a higher level of hand techniques.
Tactile score models after musical scores, so we are often asked the difference
between tactile score and musical score. At first, we created the tactile score just to
describe tactile sense made with hand techniques. Honestly, we didn’t pay much
attention to the relationship between the tactile score and music. However, we
have a feeling that the more we research the tactile sense made with hands
techniques, the more the relationship deepen.
The tactile score can describe not only massage, but also general tactile sense.
We are making a tool that reproduces tactile score such as facial equipment with
Professor T. Maeno and Y. Makino at System Design Methodology in Keio
University. In this research development, I put together the tactile sense by
reproducing the tactile score and music out of curiosity.
I think the music was Brahms’ Symphony. When I listened to the music
receiving tactile stimuli, I felt deep impression as if I were in a concert hall. It was
a fresh surprise for me.
I was much inspired when the music and tactile stimuli were combined than
with only listening to the music or receiving tactile stimuli from the facial
equipment. We have taken a hint from this to develop the facial equipment that
stimulates senses of hearing and touch at the same time. At first, we used copyright
free sound sources, but now we can make music and tactile stimuli from tactile
score at the same time because we recently began to see the method for directly
putting a tactile score into music. We are on the verge of becoming possible to take
musical scores as tactile scores though a trial and error process in researching the
relationships between tactile sense and music.
Musical scores are one of mankind’s great resources and the number and
variety of them are really huge. We have been excited to imagine that the tactile
7.1 Creating Tactile Sense as Natural Computing 37

world we have never experienced may lie inside musical scores. It’s just like
having been traveling to search the new tactile sense.

References

1. Adleman LM (1994) Molecular computation of solutions to combinatorial problems. Science

266(5187):1021–1024
2. Murata S, Konagaya A, Kobayashi S, Saito H, Hagiya M (2013) Molecular robotics: a new
paradim for artifacts. New gener comput 31(1):27–45
3. Nakagaki Toshiyuki, Yamada Hiroyasu, To’th A’gota (2000) Maze-solving by an amoeboid
organism. Nature 407:470
4. Suzuki Y (2013) Harness the nature for computation. In: Natural computing and beyond
proceedings in information and communications technology Vol 6. Springer Verlag, Berlin,
pp 49–70
Index

A Computational aesthetics, 35
A unit component of massage, 25 ComTouch, 2
A. Chang et al, 2 Contact area, 23, 25
A. Sano, 19
Abrasive papers, 15
Active touch, 19 D
Aichi Children’s Center, 13 Decode, 22
Almond oil, 4 Describe massage, 21
Aromatherapy, 3 Design methods of tactile sense, 1
Artworks for tactile sense, 12 Dots, 24
Atopic eczema, 3 Double notes, 24
Dr. Abraham Verghese, 4

B
Basic components, 29 E
Basic massage components, 27 Eight notes, 24
Basic motifs of massage, 27 Ergonomics, 2
Basic pressure, 23, 24
Basics of tactile score, 21
Beautiful massage, 29 F
Beauty salon, 20 Fabric, 32
Beauty treatments, 31 Face Therap CheeksieTM, 23, 27
Bodyworkshop, 8, 11, 12, 20 Facial equipment, 36
Bodyworkshops for Education of Children, 11 Facial massage, 4, 8
Breast cancer, 3 Feldenkrais method, 8
Breath-like mark, 25 Foot treatments, 4
Bruno Munarri, 11 Fu, 23
Buruno Munarri, 7

H
C Hands, 23
Cancer, 3 Haptica, 8
Cheeks, 25 Haptica bodyworkshop, 7, 9
Church-turing thesis, 35 Haptica project, 8
Code, 22, 36 Hieroglyphics, 22
Cognition of massage, 15 History of tactile score, 21
Comfortable massage, 31 Honen-in temple, 9
Composing massage, 31 Hongo Elementary School, Tokyo, 11

Y. Suzuki and R. Suzuki, Tactile Score, 39

SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences and Technology,
DOI: 10.1007/978-4-431-54547-7, Ó The Author(s) 2014
40 Index

How to be touched, 20 Peirce, 2

How to touch, 19, 20, 33 Pregnancy, 4
Human engineering, 2 Pressure, 23, 25
Principal component, 28
Principal component analysis, 27
I Psychological physics, 15
Image of massage, 27 Psychonomics approach, 17
Impression provoked by tactile sense, 32 Psychophysical experiment, 16
Impressions, 32
Investigation of massage, 27
Q
Quarter notes, 24
J
J. Watanabe, 2
R
R. & Y. Suzuki, 8
K Rhythm, 32
Kanji characters, 23 Rhythm of touching, 32
KES-FB system, 2 Richard Shusterman, 7
Rub, 33
Rubbing, 33
L
Language, 27
Language of massage, 27 S
Language of tactile sense, 31, 32 S. Kawabata, 2
Lymphatic massage, 4 SD method analysis., 27
Semantic Differential (SD) method, 17
Sense of security, 32
M Shoku, 23
Massage, 3, 22, 32 Single circular stroke, 32
Massage technique, 27 Skins, 23
Material textures, 22 Slime mold, 36
Materials, 32 Somaesthetics, 7
Method for composing tactile score, 31 Somatic disabilities, 8
Molecular robotics, 35 Somatic therapist, 8
Mothers’ gently tap, 32 Speed, 23
Multi-dimensional changes, 23 Staff notation, 24
Musical score on a face, 24 Staff notation of the tactile note, 24
Musical scores, 36 Standard massage, 23
Stroke, 23
Sulla, 25
N Syoku-fuTM, 23
Natural computing, 35 System Design Methodology in Keio
Non-pharmacologic method, 4 University, 36

O T
Order, 36 T. Maeno, 36
T. Nakagak, 36
Tactile contact lens, 19
P Tactile materials, 7
Pain, 3 Tactile Perception, 32
Passive touch, 19 Tactile score, 23, 27, 29, 31, 32, 34–36
Index 41

Tactile sensation, 17 V
Tactile sense, 1, 15 Visual deprivation, 9
Tactile sense technologies, 1
Tactile word, 22
Tactile workshop, 7 W
Tactual texture, 32 Weaving yarns, 33
Textile science, 2 Weber ratios, 16
The power of human hands, 4 Whole notes, 24
The way of touching, 19, 33 Woven fabric, 33
Theme, 32–34
Three dimensions, 23
Touch engineering, 3 Y
Turing machine, 36 Y. Makino, 36
Two-dimensional movements, 23