Active Tactual Motion of Fingers in Discriminating Cloth -The Difference between Male and Female-

Human uses the sight and the tactile sensations to evaluate the hand of textile fabrics. Especially the tactile sensation is the important factor to decide the hand of a textile fabric. When human evaluates the hand, the physical and physiological phenomena are occurred by the finger motion(the applied force, the speed of finger movement, the touching time, the contact area and the distance of finger movement). So we studied the relationship between the active tactual motion(the applied force, the speed of finger movement, the touching time, the contact area and the distance of finger movement) and the ability of fabric discrimination by five men and five women. As the result, the correct answer ratio of female group was higher than that of male group. In discriminating the cloth, the male group attached important to the touching time and the female group attached important to the applied force, the speed of finger movement, the touching time and the contact area.