Systematic Relations between Affective and Sensory Material Dimensions in Touch

Participants manually explored 47 solid, fluid, and granular materials and rated them according to a list of sensory and affective attributes. In principal component analyses (PCA) of sensory ratings, we extracted six dimensions: Fluidity, Roughness, Deformability, Fibrousness, Heaviness, and Granularity. PCAs on affective ratings revealed Valence, Arousal, and Dominance. PCAs explained 87 percent of variance or more. We found sensory dimensions beyond the surface characteristics on which many previous studies had focused, and the affective dimension of Dominance which previously had not been reported-probably due to our wide range of materials. Experiment 1 investigated a single sample, Experiment 2 distinguished between participants with more versus less outdoor experience during childhood. High correlations between scores of the two groups suggested that group differences were small. Across different experiments and groups greater Arousal was associated with more Fluidity, greater Dominance with increasing Heaviness and decreasing Deformability, and greater Granularity with more positive Valence. Participants with more outdoor experience associated fluid materials with unpleasant feelings, whereas participants with less outdoor experience rated rough materials as being unpleasant. Overall, we demonstrate that the range of affective responses to touched material is broader than previously assumed, and suggests systematic associations between specific affective and sensory dimensions.