CONFIGURATION OF PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES AND PRESENTATION OF EVALUATION METHOD FOR ACTIVITIES TOUCHING BODY REGIONS EXCEPT SOLES WITH FLOORS

Abstract

As the prerequisite definition in our research, “no-shoes-floor” is the floors that person takes off his shoes. In Japan, popularly, we live at dwelling houses and elderly facilities without shoes. “No-shoes-floor” life-style can be made a lot of behavior, such as walking, sitting, lying, etc. Therefore, body regions that touch to floor surface, or motions against floor have more complex and more multifarious than western style living. The final goal of our research is the establishment of evaluation methods of floor deformation properties considering comfortableness human behavior. In previous paper, we constructed the psychological scales by the sensory tests about comfortableness of various activities. In these activities, we only focused on an establishment of evaluation method for walking. At the next step, in this paper, we establish an evaluation method of touching body regions under multiple human activities. At preliminary experiments, we guess that local deformations on floors have much relation for evaluation of these activities. Under result of preliminary experiments, we need to measure deformation behavior at both of loading point and surrounding areas for establishment of evaluation method. At second, as the reference from the mutual relationships of psychological scales in previous paper, we guess that it is not need to replace loading condition of one activity when the deformation behavior is measured. In addition, we guess that it is not need to measure the deformation behavior by dynamic loading condition at each experiment. Based on the above reasoning, static loading device was developed by altering dynamic discrimination device which is for evaluation method for walking in previous paper. We measured deformation behavior at loading point and surrounding areas, and examined relationships between the deformation and psychological scales. As a result, DC shown below was established as performance value which is corresponding to psychological scales. DC = 40D0 - 40D40 40D0: amount of deformation at the loading point while loading 40kgf 40D40: amount of deformation at 40mm distance from the loading point while loading 40kgf Finally, we established following method as evaluation method of deformation properties of no-shoes-floor for activities touching body regions except soles with floors. 1) The deformation behavior is measured by using static loading device. 2) DC is calculated from the measurement result. 3) DC is collated with the relationship figures between DC and psychological scales in this paper. In summary, the evaluation methods of no-shoes-floor deformation properties which human behave various activities on are following. 1) The performance values are calculated from the measurement result of deformation behavior by using dynamic discrimination device as shown in previous paper. 2) DC as the performance value is calculated from the measurement result of deformation behavior by using static loading device as shown in this paper. 3) The above performance values are collated with the evaluation indices shown in these papers.