Correlation between the sensorial perception and the descriptive instrumental analysis of two descriptors of orthogonal touch (hardness and tackiness descriptors) (original) (raw)

The use of physical property data to predict the touch perception of materials

2012

This paper examines whether the physical properties of materials can be useful predictors of psychophysical properties of materials. In this study psychophysical methods were employed to study the link between the measured surface roughness, elastic modulus and thermal effusivity and the perceptual qualities of roughness, hardness and coldness, for a diverse set of materials (woods, polymers and metals). A strong positive correlation was found between the physical and the psychophysical properties of materials that determine touch perception. Furthermore, by analysing the data in which vision of the sample was controlled, it was found that in some cases there is a shift in touch perception between the sighted and unsighted condition that affects polymer samples most strongly.

Quantifying touch–feel perception: tribological aspects

Measurement Science and Technology, 2008

We report a new investigation into how surface topography and friction affect human touch-feel perception. In contrast with previous work based on micro-scale mapping of surface mechanical and tribological properties, this investigation focuses on the direct measurement of the friction generated when a fingertip is stroked on a test specimen. A special friction apparatus was built for the in-situ testing, based on a linear flexure mechanism with both contact force and frictional force measured simultaneously. Ten specimens, already independently assessed in a 'perception clinic', with materials including natural wood, leather, engineered plastics and metal were tested and the results compared with the perceived rankings. Because surface geometrical features are suspected to play a significant role in perception, a second set of samples, all of one material were prepared and tested in order to minimise the influence of properties such as hardness and thermal conductivity. To minimise subjective effects, all specimens were also tested in a roller-on-block configuration based upon the same friction apparatus, with the roller materials being steel, brass and rubber. This paper reports the detailed design and instrumentation of the friction apparatus, the experimental set up and the friction test results. Attempts have been made to correlate the measured properties and the perceived feelings for both roughness and friction. The results show that the measured roughness and friction coefficient both have a strong correlation with the rough-smooth and grippy-slippery feelings.

Haptic Discrimination of Different Types of Soft Materials

Springer eBooks, 2022

We interact with different types of soft materials on a daily basis such as salt, hand cream, etc. Recently we have shown that soft materials can be described using four perceptual dimensions which are deformability, granularity, viscosity, and surface softness [1]. Here, we investigated whether humans can actually perceive systematic differences in materials that selectively vary along one of these four dimensions as well as how judgments on the different dimensions are correlated to softness judgments. We selected at least two material classes per dimension (e.g., hair gel and hand cream for viscosity) and varied the corresponding feature (e.g., the viscosity of hair gel). Participants ordered four to ten materials from each material class according to their corresponding main feature, and in addition, according to their softness. Rank orders of materials according to the main feature were consistent across participants and repetitions. Rank orders according to softness were correlated either positively or negatively with the judgments along the associated four perceptual dimensions. These findings support our notion of multiple softness dimensions and demonstrate that people can reliably discriminate materials which are artificially varied along each of these softness dimensions.

Correlation between the sensorial perception and the descriptive instrumental analysis of the tackiness of silicone elastomers

Surface and Interface Analysis, 2008

One of the objectives of sensorial metrology devices aims to substitute or to reproduce the operating of human organs with a high accuracy. The advantage of such a device is to get rid of the subjective nature of human perceptions. Thus, a probe tack test device has been developed in order to reproduce human tactile exploration, especially the perception of tackiness (or stickiness). Such a device enables, indeed, to study and to quantify mechanically the tackiness of silicone elastomers. However, tackiness can also be considered with a qualitative approach by a touch test. The resulting sensorial analysis requires the achievement of tactile experiments. The descriptive instrumental analysis and the sensorial analysis enable to establish a correlation on the phenomena of adhesion between two different ways of studying tackiness. This report shows that the sensorial perception of tackiness is not necessarily related to the ''tack'' force but also depends on other characteristics of tackiness, such as the energy of adhesion or the ''tack'' distance, which represent respectively the energy required to separate the punch from the sample and the distance between the moment when the force is negative and the moment when the probe is completely separated from the sample.

Introduction of a New In-Situ Measurement System for the Study of Touch-Feel Relevant Surface Properties

Polymers

The touch-feel sensation of product surfaces arouses growing interest in various industry branches. To entangle the underlying physical and material parameters responsible for a specific touch-feel sensation, a new measurement system has been developed. This system aims to record the prime physical interaction parameters at a time, which is considered a necessary prerequisite for a successful physical description of the haptic sensation. The measurement setup enables one to measure the dynamic coefficient of friction, the macroscopic contact area of smooth and rough surfaces, the angle enclosed between the human finger and the soft-touch surfaces and the vibrations induced in the human finger during relative motion at a time. To validate the measurement stand, a test series has been conducted on two soft-touch surfaces of different roughness. While the individual results agree well with the literature, their combination revealed new insights. Finally, the investigation of the haptic...

Sensory Analysis Procedures and Viewpoints: Intellectual History, Current Debates, Future Outlooks

Journal of Sensory Studies, 1993

This paper presents the intellectual history of product testing (sensory analysis). It traces the history from two separate streams; the expert (and expert panelist), and the empiricist (sociologist, followed by experimental psychologist). Sensory analysis in the last decade of the 20th century is host to many of the same intellectual arguments in these two fields as were current a half century ago, or longer, in psychology. What has been absent is a set of worldviews and organizing principles around which the field can grow and mature more rapidly. The paper presents three major organizing subject areas for sensory analysis: individual differences (sensory segmentation), sensory-instrumental analysis (reverse engineering), and cognitive approaches (mixed modeling and optimization of physical and conceptual variables). These three subject areas and their organizing principles provide sensory analysis with a vision of future research and application that accord with the scientific heritage and extend current procedures. SENSORY ANALYSIS FROM THE 1920s TO THE 1970s Sensory analysis and product testing have a long and involved history. At times they have been a handmaiden to the R&D function in corporations, deriving their utility from providing answers about the consumer response to a prototype. At other times they struggled to become a science, with their own procedures, data, and methods of interpretation. The growth of the field has not been as smooth as one would have desired. Over the 70-year period there certainly was an increase in the scientific caliber of the research and the generalizability of the findings. But the field has been marked by conflicts of

The finishing touches: the role of friction and roughness in haptic perception of surface coatings

Experimental Brain Research, 2020

Humans are extraordinarily skilled in the tactile evaluation of, and differentiation between, surfaces. The chemical and mechanical properties of these surfaces are translated into tactile signals during haptic exploration by mechanoreceptors in our skin, which are specialized to respond to different types of temporal and mechanical stimulation. Describing the effects of measurable physical characteristics on the human response to tactile exploration of surfaces is of great interest to manufacturers of household materials so that the haptic experience can be considered during design, product development and quality control. In this study, methods from psychophysics and materials science are combined to advance current understanding of which physical properties affect tactile perception of a range of furniture surfaces, i.e., foils and coatings, thus creating a tactile map of the furniture product landscape. Participants' responses in a similarity scaling task were analyzed using INDS-CAL from which three haptic dimensions were identified. Results show that specific roughness parameters, tactile friction and vibrational information, as characterized by a stylus profilometer, a Forceboard, and a biomimetic synthetic finger, are important for tactile differentiation and preferences of these surface treatments. The obtained dimensions are described as distinct combinations of the surface properties characterized, rather than as 'roughness' or 'friction' independently. Preferences by touch were related to the roughness, friction and thermal properties of the surfaces. The results both complement and advance current understanding of how roughness and friction relate to tactile perception of surfaces.

Measuring the Material Properties Related to Human Perceptions

2018

Sensory evaluation has been widely applied in assessing the quality of many consumer products that directly serve human needs such as food, beverages, clothing, etc. This paper first examined the inherent deficiencies in this approach, due mainly to the essentially subjective nature of human sensory preference. It then argued that instinctively designating certain materials attributes as sensory perceptions is unnecessary; considering every scientific concept is in essence the processed results of our sensory organs/brains, i.e., all quantities were initially human perceptions. Scientific advances have inevitably generated gradual transformation of such human perceptions as warmth and heaviness into objective parameters measurable in physical quantities like temperature and kilograms. Then using existing successful examples, it demonstrated firmly how the sensory attributes can be assessed by more reliable instrumental methods, and envisioned the key steps to turning a perception i...

Sensory Evaluation Methods for Tactile Properties of Fabrics

Journal of Sensory Studies, 2007

Sensory evaluation of tactile properties of fabrics is a subject many researchers have studied for years and which still has importance and is also open to improvements. Particularly for suitings, the sensory evaluation of fabric handle or of other tactile properties has a greater importance. This article explains sensory evaluation techniques for stiffness, thickness and smoothness, which are the components of fabric handle of suitings. These sensory techniques are introduced by the authors and studied in 100% worsted wool suitings. The concordances of sensory test results are investigated by Kendall's concordance test, and correlation analyses are carried out to examine the relations between sensory results.