Appropriateness and Impression Evaluation of Japanese Seated Bow

Japanese bowing has two types, that is, standing bow and seated bow. Though seated bow is used in the scene at tea ceremony or Japanese traditional restaurants, standing bow is the main style in Japanese society at the present. Before Meiji period, sitting bow was often used in the scene of receiving guests in Japanese (tatami) room. But after that, service systems have gradually been westernized, and standing bow have become more popular. As a study of researching bowing through experimentation, Gyoba et al. [4] conducted a pair of experiments, one investigating subjective impressions toward the action of bowing, and the other investigating the appropriateness of certain styles in given social contexts. But in this paper we focus on seated bow. This study used video clips of seated bowing actions. The bend angle (30°, 45°, 90°) and duration of the bent posture (0–4 s) were varied. In this experiment, the participants rated their subjective impressions of the bowing actions. It showed the effect that the bend angle and duration of the bent posture impress.