Soft Entrainment: Co-emergence of “Maai” and Entrainment by Rhythm Controller - Emotional Engineering - page 79

3 Rhythm Controller as the Soft Interface

3.1 Rhythm Controller and Mental and Physical Functions

In the previous section, focused on entrainment, we studied the co-emergence of
Maai using the rhythm controller, which has the following two characteristics.
1. Operators can manipulate their own avatar through rhythmic operation that
precedes avatar motion.
2. Controller input does not have a one-to-one correspondence with avatar motion.

In other words, we advance our own research mainly using characteristic 1.
However, in this section, we focus on characteristic 2. Concretely, we consider that
mental and physical functions that are latescent are re fl ected in the controller
manipulation method by characteristic 2. In the following section, we explain
research content based on this consideration.
Therefore, controller input does not have a one-to-one correspondence with
avatar motion, operators can create avatar motion (action) while freely deciding the
controller manipulation method (the relationship between controller input and
avatar motion) through mental and physical functions. In fact, determining this
relationship requires the involvement of mental and physical functions (Fig. 11 ) .
We consider that mental and physical functions are re fl ected in the relationship
between controller input and avatar motion if the operator creates the action (avatar
motion) using the rhythm controller. For this reason, if the avatar motion is ana-
lyzed in relation to the controller manipulation method, we can study the mental
and physical functions that create the action. In contrast, for a normal controller in
which avatar motion corresponds one-to-one with controller input, the relationship
between the controller input and avatar motion is unambiguous, and the controller
manipulation method is not changed (Fig. 12 ). Consequently, it is dif ! cult to
examine mental and physical functions from the controller manipulation method for

(a) (b)

Interface
(Controller)

S
(Controller
input)

V
(Avatar motion)

Human
Mental and
physical
functions

Avatar

Avatar
motion

1
2
3
4
5
6

Ambiguity of
relationship

A

Controller
Input

B

C

Relationship between controller input and avatar
motion is decided by mental and physical functions

Fig. 11 Rhythm controller. a Relationship between controller input and avatar motion.

b Relationship among human and avatar [ 11 ]