Shitsukan—Understanding and Manipulating Material Quality Perception

This open-access book presents interdisciplinary research on "Shitsukan" a unique Japanese word that refers to the qualitative, immeasurable attributes pertaining to the materials and quality of objects and scenes. Through the perception of the wide and rich varieties of Shitsukan, humans can gain essential information for their daily lives, perceive the richness of the world, judge the value of things, and determine appropriate bodily actions. Understanding how to recognize Shitsukan and how to manipulate Shitsukan are thus fundamental research topics for us humans. This book describes the quest towards defining and excavating the deep Shitsukan information in the real world to advance our understanding of Shitsukan perception at both the computational and experimental levels. This book is organized as follows: Part I introduces how humans and machines perceive Shitsukan. Part II introduces diverse studies on the neural processing of Shitsukan. Part III addresses how to control Shitsukan experiences. By reading through this book, readers will gain insight into how humans and machines perceive Shitsukan (psychopysics and computer vision), how the brain processes Shitsukan (neuroscience), and how one can create and modulate Shitsukan (virtual reality, digital art, and industrial engineering).