Formation of Visual and Tactile Impressions When Evaluating Wooden Specimens

Abstract

When people encounter wooden products, they tend to unthinkingly take them in their hands and evaluate them in a multisensory manner based on both visual and tactile cues. Using specimens made of four types of wood and finished with two types of coating, we investigated the process of sensory inspection to identify which of these two perceptions plays the paramount role in the formation of subjects’ visual and tactile impressions of wooden specimens. A multiple regression analysis of the relationship between the combined visual-tactile perception and its constituent visual and tactile components revealed that although visual perception played the dominant role overall, information from tactile receptors in the form of perceptions of the specimens’ temperature, roughness, and moistness had a significant effect on subjects’ impressions. An investigation of the relationship between subjects’ visual and tactile perceptions and the material properties of the specimens suggested that subjects’ impressions of the wooden specimens were linked to tactile perceptions shaped by specimen roughness and visual perceptions shaped by specimen brightness.