Sensibility - Kansei (English spelling)

Japanese: 感性 - かんせい（英語表記）Kansei

Sensitivity basically refers to comprehensive and intuitive mental activities and abilities, especially cognitive processes related to impression evaluation, creativity, expression, and non-logical thinking and judgment (sensory knowledge). Therefore, the category of sensibility includes not only the recognition and evaluation of beauty and pleasantness, but also the senses that are accompanied by emotions such as taste and smell, and the recognition of perceptual impressions such as texture, speed, and breadth. Sensitivity is also related to the ancient Greek word aisthesis, which means a variety of "perceptions" that include everything from sensation to emotion. Aisthesis gave birth to aesthetics, but sensibility is also used in everyday life to mean a sense of beauty or good taste. The concept of sensibility has been exported overseas as Kansei, and is sometimes considered to be unique to Japan, but considering ways of thinking like aisthesis and the fact that sensibility originally came into Japan as a translation of the English word sensibility and the German word Sinnlichkeit, it should rather be understood as referring to a way of looking at things and ways of thinking that are unique to the culture.

Sensitivity is also thought to be involved in the ability to make instant and accurate decisions in situations where conditions are insufficient to arrive at a logical answer, such as heuristics (methods of problem solving and decision-making based on discovery, intuition, and empirical rules), inspiration, and tacit knowledge, as well as groundbreaking discoveries and creations that are not bound by existing knowledge and concepts. In other words, it is thought to be involved in the process and ability to make intellectual decisions that are separate from logical circuits. The fact that the beauty of mathematical formulas and musical scores supports correct logical development and appropriate melody progressions, and examples of scientific discoveries being born from visual images, also indicate the existence of a way of thinking that is different from symbol manipulation. Sensitivity is thought of as an unconscious, information-integrating process rather than a conscious, analytical cognitive process.

Sensitivity is also called the "art of life." This implies that sensibility is an innate ability that does not require learning. However, it has also been pointed out that sensibility is strongly influenced by culture and society, such as changes in aesthetic sense due to the times and trends, and there is also a theory that sensibility can be "honed" through learning.

While sensitivity refers to cognitive processes such as impression evaluation, information that induces sensitivity, such as the beauty or lightness of music or paintings, is sometimes called sensory information. However, people may find beauty in simple stimuli, or may not be moved by music that is generally considered beautiful. It is controversial whether certain stimuli should be considered to have sensory information, or whether there is a cognitive process that perceives certain information sensorily. However, it is also true that certain ratios, shapes, melodies, and rhythms can give certain impressions, such as a sense of beauty, lightness, or discomfort. For example, figures and arrangements with the golden ratio (1:1.618) or fractal (autocorrelation) structure are said to give aesthetic impressions. Experimental aesthetics, which began with Fechner, GT, started from empirical investigations of the relationship between such stimuli and sensory impressions. Nowadays, not only classical psychophysical methods developed from his method, but also psychophysical methods such as the magnitude estimation method (ME method) and the semantic differential method, which compares pairs of opposing adjectives and rates them on a seven-point scale, are often used as sensory evaluations to measure the sensory aspects of objects, and multivariate analyses such as factor analysis and cluster analysis are used to clarify the characteristics of objects and impressions. The results of factor analysis are often classified into three factors, evaluation, activity, and potency, regardless of modality or stimulus, and these are sometimes called affective meaning. This type of sensory evaluation is also an important aspect of sensory research.

Furthermore, since sensibility involves personal preferences and experiences, individual differences as well as universality are of interest.
[Kayo Miura]

Latest Sources Psychology Encyclopedia Latest Psychology Encyclopedia About Information

Japanese:

感性とは，基本的には包括的・直感的に行なわれる心的活動およびその能力，とくに，印象評価や創造・表現，論理によらない思考や判断（感性知）などにかかわる認知過程を指す。したがって，美しさや快さなどの認知や評価はもとより，味覚や嗅覚のように感情を伴う感覚，質感・速度感・広がり感といった知覚的印象の認知も，感性の範疇に含まれる。感性は，感覚から感情までを含む多様な「知覚」を意味する古代ギリシア語のアイステーシスaisthesisとも関連する。アイステーシスから美学aestheticsが誕生したが，感性も日常的には美意識やセンスの良さに使われる。感性はKanseiとして海外にも概念が輸出され，日本特有のものとされることもあるが，アイステーシスのような考え方や，感性がもともと英語のsensibilityやドイツ語のSinnlichkeitの訳語として入ってきたことを考慮するならば，むしろ，文化固有の見方や考え方を指すものとしてとらえるべきであろう。

　感性はまた，ヒューリスティックスheuristics（発見や直観・経験則に基づく問題解決や意思決定の方法）やひらめき，暗黙知など，論理的に答えを導くには条件が不足している状況で瞬時かつ的確な判断を下す能力や，既存の知識・概念にとらわれない画期的な発見や創造を行なうこと，つまりは論理回路とは別の知的判断を行なう過程や能力にも関与していると考えられる。数式や楽譜の美しさが正しい論理展開や適切なメロディ進行を裏づけるといった指摘や，科学的発見が視覚的なイメージから誕生したという例も，記号操作とは異なる思考方法の存在を示すものであろう。感性は意識的，分析的な認知過程というより，無意識的，情報統合的な過程と考えられる。

　また，感性は「き（生）の芸術」ともいわれる。これは，感性が学習を経ない生得的な能力であることを含意している。しかし一方で，時代や流行による美意識の変化など，感性は文化や社会の影響を強く受ける側面があることも指摘され，また，感性は学習によって「磨かれる」とする説もある。

　感性が印象評価などの認知過程を指すのに対し，感性を引き起こす情報，たとえば音楽や絵画の美しさや軽やかさなどを感性情報とよぶことがある。ただし，単純な刺激にも美しさを感じたり，一般に美しいと評される音楽に心が動かされないこともあり，特定の刺激が感性情報をもっていると考えるべきか，特定の情報を感性的に受け止める認知過程があると考えるべきかは議論のあるところである。しかし，特定の比率や形状，メロディやリズムなどが，美感や，軽快感，違和感など，特定の印象を与えるということも事実である。たとえば，黄金比（1:1.618）やフラクタル（自己相関）構造をもつ図形や配置は美的印象を与えるとされる。フェヒナーFechner,G.T.に始まる実験美学は，こうした刺激と感性印象との関係を実証的に調べることから出発した。現在では，彼の手法を展開した古典的な精神物理学的手法に限らず，マグニチュード推定法method of magnitude estimation（ME法）のような精神物理学的手法，さらに，相反する形容詞対を対比させて，7段階などで評定を行なうSD法semantic differential method（意味微分法）が対象の感性的側面を測る感性評価としてしばしば用いられ，因子分析やクラスター分析などの多変量解析によって，対象や印象の特徴を明らかにすることに使われている。因子分析の結果は，モダリティや刺激によらず，評価性evaluation，活動性activity，力量性potencyの3因子に分類されることが多く，これらを感情的意味affective meaningとよぶこともある。このような感性評価も感性研究の重要な側面となっている。

　なお，感性には個人の嗜好や経験が関与するため，普遍性に加え，個人差も注目される。
〔三浦佳世〕

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