Analysis of experimental consensus-building tasks with evaluation indices
Authors: Matsuoka Shion , Ueda Kimi , Ishii Hirotake , Shimoda Hiroshi 
Published: January 2025

We routinely engage in consensus-building activities on issues ranging from the trivial, such as deciding where to go on a group trip, to the socially significant, such as the issue of final disposal sites for radioactive waste. In order to build consensus, it is necessary to reach one unanimous conclusion [1].In such communication, it is known that “Kansei” plays an important role in improving human relations [2]. Therefore, it is believed that analyzing consensus building from the perspective of Kansei can provide suggestions for achieving more amicable consensus building.Therefore, in order to analyze the relationship between sensitivity and consensus building in the previous study, we designed a consensus building task to be used in an experiment to record the favorability for each utterance.In this consensus-building task, two experimental participants (A and B) decide by consensus “whether A will wait a certain amount of time without doing anything after the task ends.” B is initially provided with six foods, such as chocolate, etc. For A, waiting represents a penalty that A accepts.B uses these foods as bargaining chips. At this time, if both parties agree that A will not wait, both cannot get the foods; if A waits, both can get them as per the consensus distribution. However, the results of the consensus building were evaluated using the objective consensus results of waiting or not waiting and prize distribution only, and no significant relationship could be shown between the consensus building results and Kansei.It is said that gaining mutual trust is important in risk communication, which is a type of consensus building [3]. Therefore, we believe that it is possible to evaluate the results of consensus building from the perspective of trust in this consensus building, which discusses the acceptance of penalties.It is also said that there is a relationship between trust and the degree of agreement on the outcome. [3]Therefore, in order to analyze the relationship between Kansei and consensus building results, this study get the foods the level of mutual trust and the level of agreement with the results as subjective evaluation indices of consensus building results, and analyzes the relationship between them and Kansei.In other words, in order to investigate the degree of agreement and trust in consensus building, both parties are asked to answer the questions about their level of trust and their level of agreement with the results of consensus building after the task is completed.The experiment was conducted with 5 groups of 10 undergraduate and graduate students, and it was suggested that the sum of the trust level of both parties and the liking level have a relationship. We are currently running an experiment of the same content, and in the Final Manuscript, we would like to describe the results of this experiment in detail and specifically show its impact on the degree of trust and the degree of delivery in the consensus building process. Specifically, we would like to analyze the results of the consensus building process by focusing on the relationship between the ratio of the decrease in favorability of the proposing side and the level of agreement and trust.[1] Susskind, L., McKearnan, S., & Thomas-Larmer, J. (Eds.). (1999). The consensus building handbook: A comprehensive guide to reaching agreement, SAGE Publications, Inc.[2] Tei, S., Kawaguchi, T., Sim, T., Shizuka, H.(2020). Understanding and Supporting Users to Improve Atmosphere of Communication by Kansei Agents, Proceedings of International Symposium on Affective Science and Engineering 2020.[3] CLundgren, R. E., & McMakin, A. H. (2018). Risk communication: A handbook for communicating environmental, safety, and health risks (6th ed.). Wiley-IEEE Press.