Objective emotional assessment of tactile hair properties and their modulation by different product worlds

Abstract

Tactile properties of cosmetic products constitute weak stimuli and thus can be expected to be easily modified by mental images. In order to enhance an intended positive-emotion-inducing effect of such a product, its experience can be embedded in a certain 'world' that generates a positive emotional imagination. The present study investigated such an influence in 12 males and 12 females, half of each being laymen and experts in sensory assessment. Two product worlds (emotional and technical) and three different hair samples, two of them treated with different shampoos and an untreated one as control, were presented to each subject in counter-balanced order of all six combinations. An objective emotional assessment using a psychophysiological technique developed in an earlier study was applied and compared with a traditional sensory assessment. Among the physiological measures, peripheral blood volume and facial muscular activity were the most sensitive in revealing effects of and interactions between the product worlds and hair samples. A multivariate evaluation of the physiological data revealed three discriminant functions that explained 78.4% of the total variance and enabled a re-classification considerably better than chance. The first discriminant function clearly separated the treated from the untreated hair samples which was not possible by subjective ratings or traditional sensory assessment. The two other discriminant functions comprised a hedonistic and a product world factor. The emotional product world exerted the largest influence in case of the weakest tactile differences between the hair samples, and its influence was larger on laymen than on experts. Gender effects were most prominent in the subjective domain. In conclusion, multivariate psychophysiological methodology is superior to traditional sensory assessment in revealing subtle differences in the tactile perception of cosmetic products.

Electrodermal Activity

“…In a second study (Boucsein, Schaefer, Kefel, Busch, & Eisfeld, 2002) performed with 12 female and 12 male participants, half of each group composed of laymen and experts in using a technique called sensory assessment (describing sensory-perception related product properties). They were presented with three hair tresses, two of them treated with different shampoos and one left untreated.…”

Affective signal processing (ASP) : unraveling the mystery of emotions

“…This can be explained by two major differences between both studies: different statistical parameters were tested and different stimuli were used; dynamic, multimodal film fragments vs. affective words, sound, or pictures [570,663]. This issue is a matter of the traditional trade-off between, on the one hand, ecological validity, as is required for consumer applications and, on the other hand, a high level of control, which enables the isolation of effects through various factors; see also [63,235,237,570,700,701].…”

“…The consumer context poses a number of boundary conditions that might be different with respect to those of the professional context [63,99,722]. A first distinction is in the accuracy required for emotion detection.…”

Sound Quality of Turn Indicator Sounds—Use of a Multidimensional Approach in the Automotive Product Development

“…For the elimination of artifacts and the computation of the different measures, different software packages from Boucsein's Laboratory were used (Schaefer, 1999(Schaefer, , 2000(Schaefer, , 2002(Schaefer, and 2005. The psychophysiological measures in the statistical analyses were for ECG: HR (heart rate) in bpm (beat per minute) and HRV (heart rate variability) calculated as MQSD (mean square of successive differences), and for EDA: SCL (skin conductance level), NS.SCR (count of non-specific skin conductance responses), sum-amplitude and mean sum-amplitude of SCR (skin conductance responses).…”

“…To cope with the multidimensional impression that a product/vehicle sound may activate in a customer, a multidimensional approach should be chosen for product testing and sound assessments. The multidimensional approach combines subjective parameters (psychological part), objective parameters (physical and psychoacoustic part), and psychophysiological measures (activation and emotional reactions) [9][10][11][12]. This approach also corresponds to the results of other research groups that describe the assessment of driving as well as analyses…”