Touch influences perceived gloss

Abstract

Identifying an object’s material properties supports recognition and action planning: we grasp objects according to how heavy, hard or slippery we expect them to be. Visual cues to material qualities such as gloss have recently received attention, but how they interact with haptic (touch) information has been largely overlooked. Here, we show that touch modulates gloss perception: objects that feel slippery are perceived as glossier (more shiny).Participants explored virtual objects that varied in look and feel. A discrimination paradigm (Experiment 1) revealed that observers integrate visual gloss with haptic information. Observers could easily detect an increase in glossiness when it was paired with a decrease in friction. In contrast, increased glossiness coupled with decreased slipperiness produced a small perceptual change: the visual and haptic changes counteracted each other. Subjective ratings (Experiment 2) reflected a similar interaction – slippery objects were rated as glossier and vice versa. The sensory system treats visual gloss and haptic friction as correlated cues to surface material. Although friction is not a perfect predictor of gloss, the visual system appears to know and use a probabilistic relationship between these variables to bias perception – a sensible strategy given the ambiguity of visual clues to gloss.

The Visual Perception of Material Properties Affects Motor Planning in Prehension: An Analysis of Temporal and Spatial Components of Lifting Cups

“…In particular if hardness can be anticipated using the object's surface gloss, given that some objects with glossy appearances happen to be made of hard materials (e.g., plastic mobile cases, cutlery, and laminated paper). Although, Adams et al (2016) found no correlation between perceived glossiness and physical compliance, and no relationship between physical surface gloss and perceived compliance. It would be interesting to examine if this is the case for real objects made of materials that are familiar to the observer, instead of phantom objects.…”

“…Conceptually, surface gloss is perceived visually but it can convey tactile information, such as friction. Adams et al (2016) demonstrated such cross-modal relationship between surface gloss and perceived friction. Using discrimination paradigm, they presented computer-generated objects to their participants, either visually on a screen or haptically using a Phantom force feedback device, and found that slipperiness had a positive relationship with objects with shiny surfaces.…”

Fats are Glossy but Does Glossiness Imply Fatness? The Influence of Packaging Glossiness on Food Perceptions

“…Similarly, a product's glossiness is not only inferred from its visual appearance, but also from haptic cues. A product that feels slippery is judged to be glossier [16]. Hence, the cues provided by each of the senses tend to be combined to constitute the perceptions of a product's attributes [17].…”

Finding the “odd one out”: Memory color effects and the logic of appearance

“…Experiment 1: The "odd-one-out" task If memory color effects are genuinely perceptual, then they should reveal themselves not only through direct reports of an object's color, but also through "odd-one-out" comparisons of the sort in Figure 2. (For other perception studies employing analogous tasks in domains other than memory color effects, see Adams, Kerrigan, & Graf, 2016;Robilotto & Zaidi, 2004. ) Experiment 1 ran such a test for the now-classic case of yellow-looking bananas.…”