• I am studying vision information processing, visual psychology, and psychological data analysis.
• Vision science may be divided into some subfields: color vision, spatial vision, motion perception, object recognition and etc.

• I have been studying information processing for motion perception, glossiness perception, the feeling of being dazzled, and so on. I am investigating human vision by psychophysical experiments, and modeling of visual information processing.
• I have been also studying visual impressions of colors, and perception of visual arts.
• In addition, I am studying psychological data analysis using statistical methods in machine learning and signal processing. I am investigating human personality using such techniques. I am studying techniques to estimate perceptual spaces using data of Japanese onomatopoeias and so on.
• My research themes:
  • Motion perception. I have been studying how the human visual system processes visual motion information.
    • Spatial interaction of visual motion information. When a peripheral region surrounding a central region moves, we sometimes feel that the central region is moving, though it was actually stationary. I have been studying how such spatial interaction of motion information arises in the visual system．
    • Heading perception: I studied how the visual system computes the heading direction (where we go) from visual motion information.
  • Perception of visual art: We are usually insensitive to the distortion in obliquely viewed pictures. I am investigating this mystery.
  • The feeling of being dazzled. Some images with luminance gradation appear to be glaring. I am investigating the feeling of being dazzled with such glare stimuli with luminance gradients.
  • Glossiness perception. I examined effects of colors on glossiness.
  • Visual psychology. I am investigating the feeling of colors.
    • Color harmony. Brain responses to color harmony or disharmony were examined by EEG (electroencephalogram, brain waves)..
    • Color-emotion associations: Associations between colors and emotions were examined.
    • Color-form associations: Association of visual forms with colors were examined.
  • Psychological data analysis. I am studying methods for applying statistical techniques such as independent component analysis for signal processing to psychological data.
    • Independent component analysis (ICA) on SD (semantic differential) data. I analyzed SD data about impressions of colors by ICA.
    • Japanese onomatopoeia. Perceptual space of material perception was examined using Japanese onomatopoeias.
    • Personality. Human personality was examined by ICA.

Spatial interaction of visual motion information

• It is called motion contrast that the stationary central object appears to move in the direction opposite to the direction of the moving surrounding objects. When the stationary center appears to move in the same direction as the surrounding motion direction, we call it motion assimilation. I found that the mode of induced motion due to surrounding motion changes from motion contrast to motion assimilation with the increase of the noise level.
• It was reported that at high luminance contrast, performance for discriminating motion direction decrease as the stimulus size increases. It was suggested that abrupt stimulus presentation is a crucial factor for this phenomenon. I reported that the decrease of performance for motion direction discrimination with the increase of stimulus size was observed for abrupt stimulus presentation, but not for stimulus movement after 500ms presentation of the static stimulus.
• Research papers
  • Hanada, M. (2012). Investigation of center-surround interaction in motion with reaction time for direction discrimination. Vision Research, 59, 34-44.
  • Hanada, M. (2010). Differential effect of luminance contrast reduction and noise on motion induction. Perception, 39(11), 1452-1465.
  • Hanada, M. (2004). Effects of the noise level on induced motion. Vision Research, 44 (15), 1757-1763

Heading perception

• We can know where we are going when we move in the world. Perception of self-motion is also induced by only visual stimulation without actual self-motion. For example, we can get feeling of self-motion from visual stimuli of driving or flight simulators. I studied how the visual system computes the heading direction (the direction to which we are moving). I researched characteristics of heading perception from visual motion information. Further, perception of heading from motion information was modeled.
• Research papers
  • Hanada, M. (2005). Computational analyses for illusory transformations in the optic flow field and heading perception in the presence of moving objects. Vision Research, 45 (6), 749-758.
  • Hanada, M. (2005). An algorithmic model of heading perception. Biological Cybernetics, 92 (1), 8-20.
  • Hanada, M., & Ejima, Y. (2000). Heading judgement from second-order motion. Vision Research, 40 (24), 3319-3331.
  • Hanada, M., & Ejima, Y. (2000). Method for recovery of heading from motion. Journal of the Optical Society of America A, 17 (6), 966-973.
  • Hanada, M., & Ejima, Y. (2000). Effects of roll and pitch components in retinal flow on heading judgement. Vision Research, 40 (14), 1827-1838.
  • Hanada, M., & Ejima, Y. (2000). A model of human heading judgement in forward motion. Vision Research, 40 (2), 243-263.

Feeling of being dazzled

• A uniform region surrounded by a region with luminance gradation appears to be emitting light, or glowing. In computer graphics, such images with luminance gradation are called glare. (In studies of illumination, the meaning of glare is different from that in computer graphics.)
• Glare stimulus used in my research
• I reported that the feeling of being dazzled varies with the variation of the profile of luminance gradient for the surrounding region.
• I also reported that the feeling of being dazzled is stronger for a red or blue surrounding region than for a green, yellow, or gray one. It was also found that the difference in color between the central and surrounding regions enhances the feeling of being dazzled.
• Research paper
  • Hanada, M. (2019). Effects of peripheral gradient of color saturation on the feeling of being dazzled. Perception, 48(5), 412-427.
  • Hanada, M. (2015). Effects of colors on the feeling of being dazzled evoked by stimuli with luminance gradients. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 121(1), 219-232.
  • Hanada, M. (2012). Luminance profiles of luminance gradients affect the feeling of dazzling. Perception, 41(7), 791-802.

Glossiness perception

• It was reported that the highlight color (color of specular reflection) of a object is different from the object color (color of diffuse reflection), the object appears to be glossier than when the highlight and object colors are the same. The enhancement of glossiness due to difference of the highlight and object colors was observed even when the combination of the two colors are unnatural.
• Research paper
  • Hanada, M. (2012). Difference between highlight and object colors enhances glossiness. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 114(3), 735-747.

Perception of visual art

• In crowding galleries, we often cannot see pictures in front and have to observe pictures obliquely. The retinal projection of a slanted picture is different from that of the frontal pictures. However, we are usually insensitive to the distortion of oblique pictures. I investigated the visual information processing for oblique pictures.
• Research paper
  • Hanada, M. (2005). Phenomenal regression to the frontal and natural picture. Vision Research, 45 (22), 2895-2909.

Independent component analysis (ICA) on SD(semantic differential) data

• Data obtained by SD(semantic differential have been analyzed by factor analysis. Affective meaning of color pairs were measured by SD scales, and independent component analysis (ICA) were applied to the SD data. It was shown that when ICA for negative kurtosis was used for the SD data, interpretable and meaningful factors (or components) were obtained.
• Research paper
  • Hanada, M. (2013). Analyses of color emotion for color pairs with independent component analysis and factor analysis. Color Research and Application, 38(4), 297-308.

Color-emotion associations

• Red is associated with anger or excitement, and yellow with happiness, and green with calmness. Colors sometimes evoke some moods, and are associated with emotions. I examined color-emotion associations using correspondence analysis. Especially, I examined the hypothesis that the color circle match the emotion circle such as Russell's circumplex models of emotions. However, my data did not support the hypothesis. Colors seem to be associated with emotions through the mediation of temperature or activeness felt by colors and emotions.
• Research paper
  • Hanada, M. (2018). Correspondence analysis of color -emotion associations. Color Research & Application, 43(2), 224-237.

Color-form associations

• Japanese people tend to associate round visual forms with red, and irregular angular visual forms with yellow. Associations of colors with various visual forms were examined. The results suggest that the role of emotional mediation was rather minor, and world knowledge and cognitive mediation play a larger role in color-form associations.
• Research paper
  • Hanada, M. (2019). Associations of visual forms with colors: The minor role of emotion as the mediator. Color Research & Application, 44(4), 568-580.

Japanese onomatopoeia

• Perceptual space of visual material perception was explored using Japanese onomatopoeias. It was reported that even when observers judge materials visually, perceptual space obtained from visual judgments are similar to tactile perceptual space. This suggests that in material perception, tactile mode of perception is dominant.
• Research paper
  • Hanada, M. (2016). Using Japanese　onomatopoeias to explore perceptual dimensions in visual material perception. Perception, 45(5), 568-587.