Tactile Sensation Induced by Images of Clothes with Motion Parallax

In recent years, the number of Internet users has been increasing and this is due to the spread of information communication devices. Approximately 80% of the Japanese population uses the internet. Furthermore, over 90% of companies uses the Internet, with the number of companies offering electronic commerce (e-commerce) services increasing each year. However, since 2009, the number of such companies has not progressed. According to a report, the principal reason that consumers cited for not using e-commerce was that they “want to purchase products after seeing the real product.” In the current study, proper attention was given to clothes, which had a high sales share in e-commerce. The differences in the visually-induced tactile sensation between users seeing real clothes, compared to when they saw images of clothes are investigated. The current study also proposed techniques, for image editing and presentation, to reduce these differences. 9 thin sweaters were used as an experimental stimulus. Images of the clothes with motion parallax was developed using an application software on a tablet-type device. The participants evaluated the tactile sensation evoked by each stimulus on 11 items with adjective pairs. Findings revealed that the presentation of images with motion parallax evoked visuallyinduced tactile sensations that were like those evoked when they saw a real sweater. The perceptions of fluffiness, irregularity, and roughness, in particular, were better in the motion parallax condition.