Tactile emotional factors for in-vehicle surface materials

Automobile drivers and passengers feel tactile emotions from surface texture of in-vehicle materials, and it affects satisfaction of automobile users. Prior studies have examined a variety of emotional dimensions, including ‘rough-smooth’, ‘hard-soft’, ‘sticky-slippery’ and ‘warm-cold’, from various kinds of surface materials, but there were few studies that considered the characteristics of surface texture and its usage context. This study focused on investigating tactile emotional factors of in-vehicle surface textures. The experiments were conducted with 17 participants and 10 types of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) resin-based material samples. Each of participants was asked to respond to the agreeability of 16 emotional expressions after feeling each of material samples. From the factor analysis, three tactile emotional factors, such as factor 1 (smooth/slippery/cold), factor 2 (soft/warm/sticky) and factor 3 (hard), were derived and validated by showing good internal consistency. It is concluded that automobile users mainly feel three kinds of emotions from surface textures of ABS resin-based in-vehicle materials.