Effect of Color in the Evaluation of Comfort Derived from Touch

Abstract

This study aims to clarify the effect of color in evaluating the comfort derived from touching a texture. The preliminary experiment revealed that a sense of color is derived from touching textures, there are affectively congruent pairs of colors and textures. The color stimuli consisted of two chromatic and three achromatic colors, the tactile stimuli included three types of resin plates. Twenty participants evaluated their sense of comfort derived from the tactile stimuli while they were looking at the color stimuli. As a result, an association was observed between the color stimuli and the tactile stimuli. The resin plates with flat textures and high chroma colors were evaluated as more comfortable than just flat textures; the deeply wrinkled textures with low chroma colors were evaluated as more uncomfortable than just deeply wrinkled textures. These results show that color affects the evaluation of the sense of comfort offered by tactile sensation.