Tactile and visual contributions to the perception of naturalness
Krista Overvliet, Salvador Soto-Faraco
Poster
Last modified: 2008-05-13
Abstract
Most people prefer natural over artificial things, and therefore "naturalness" is a highly appreciated material characteristic. For instance, a natural wooden floor is seen as more valuable than a fake replica, though they may be comparable in quality and durability. It is therefore surprising that the amount of research into which sensory modalities may influence the perception of naturalness is minimal. In the present study we investigated how vision and touch contribute to perception of naturalness in wood. Participants rated samples of wood or imitations thereof, such as vinyl and veneers. We used four measurement methods (labelled scaling, magnitude estimation, binary decision, ranked ordering) and three exploration modalities (vision only, touch only, bimodal). The results show a high degree of consistency across measurement methods. However, the estimations from the unimodal conditions, vision and touch, were not highly correlated; thus their contributions to this perception may be independent. Finally, the results of the bimodal condition can be approximated by a weighted average model, in which vision and touch have similar weighting.