The Fundamentals of Kansei Engineering and a Methodological Problem: Human Internal Information and Empathy

Researches in Biometrics (B. M.) and Kansei engineering (K. E.) commonly utilize biological or physiological data as their major means. Therefore, it seems plausible to expect meaningful cooperation between B. M. and K. E. Aiming at exploring a possibility to materialize such an expectation, in the 1^st part of the paper, we first discuss some fundamental issues of K. E. including the characteristic of K.E. as well as the definition of the term Kansei itself. In the 2^nd part of the paper, the issue of human internal information such as emotions which reside the inside of human body, and hence, are unmeasurable from the outside are discussed as a basic problem lying over both B. M. and K.E. In particular, problems how to acquire human internal information are discussed through several examples.