Perception of fluids with diverse rheology applied to the underarm versus forearm skin

Abstract

Little is known about the tactile-perceptual structure of fluids. Therefore, ten fluids with diverse, characterized rheologies were rated by 16 females, on 27 sensory attributes (e.g., "slippery") and 14 emotional attributes (e.g., "enjoyable") via five-point categorical scales. Fluids were assessed against the volar forearm and underarm, sites that commonly experience contact with fluids during the use of personal care products. Application of fluids was either by the participant to their own body ("self-applied") or by the experimenter to the participant's body ("experimenter-applied"). Separate factor analyses of the sensory and emotional attributes for different body sites and modes of touch suggested approximately the same factorial structure in each case. Four general sensory factors emerged, labeled Lubricating, Textured, Silken, and Viscous, and two emotional factors, Comfortable and Arousing. These factors resembled those from equivalent work that used solid materials as stimuli, emphasizing that despite the differences in perceptual structure between fluid-coated and dry, solid surfaces, different body sites, and modes of touch influence the perception of fluid and dry stimuli similarly. As expected, fluids varied widely in how they scored on the factors. Site-wise differences were found, whereby stimuli assessed against the forearm were rated as more Lubricating, less Textured, more Silken, and more Comfortable than they were against the underarm. Self-applied touch was less Comfortable than experimenter-applied. The physical and perceptual were linked insofar as greater measured viscosity at low shear rates was associated with perceptions of cold and wet, whereas at high shear rates, greater viscosity was associated with greater perceived thickness.

Perceptual and Sensory-Functional Consequences of Skin Care Products

“…The first two emotional factors matched very well those from prior work in social psychology, which suggested that any emotional experience is embodied with certain amounts of three independent qualities, namely Pleasure, Arousal and Dominance [27][28][29][30]. Unlike the sensory experience of touch, the factors describing the emotional experience of touch appear quite similar for the tactile experience of dry and fluid stimuli [20,21]. The emotional experience of Dominance has not emerged in these studies, perhaps because Dominance is only of consequence in interactions between, or assessments of, other humans (perception of facial expression, [31], perception of body posture, [32]).…”

“…Our suggestion was that words describing the overall sensory experience of touch (i.e., semantic-perceptual space) fall along three orthogonal axes, approximating Rough-Smooth, Dry-Wet and Hot-Cold (Figure 1), but when actual dry, textured stimuli were assessed using these words (i.e., using the TPT), orthogonal factors emerged describing, in decreasing order of importance, Roughness, Slip, Firmness and Pile. The subsequent extension of this work to the perception of skin care products [21] suggested five orthogonal sensory factors approximating Wetness, Texture, Slickness, Silkiness and Viscosity. Water is, of course, a fluid that is of paramount importance for humans, and the primacy of the wetness factor may reflect water's critical role in our lives.…”

“…Recently, we [20] characterized the tactile perception of stimuli in a more general manner, with the underlying goal of providing a lexicon of the words that are necessary to describe the experience of touch for dry and-in a subsequent study-lubricated surfaces [21]. The work built upon methods used in the development of standard clinical tools, primarily the McGill Pain Questionnaire [22], and a more recent methodology describing the development of a texture description lexicon [23].…”

“…Second, we considered words that describe the sense of touch in general, not just texture perception. Finally, we extended the work to consider the specific case of skin care product perception, i.e., fluids [21].…”

Dynamic sensory characterization of cosmetic creams during application using Temporal Check-All-That-Apply (TCATA) questions

“…roughness in exfoliating scrubs or heat in lipolytic creams) (Guest et al, 2013). Sensory characteristics commonly evaluated during product application include absorbency, cloudiness, freshness, greasiness, oiliness, roughness, silkiness, smoothness, spreadability, stickiness, thickness, tingling, viscosity, waxiness, warming, cooling, melting, wetness, tautness (ASTM, 2011;Guest, Mehrabyan, Essick, Hopkinson, & McGlone, 2012;Meilgaard, Civille, & Carr, 2000, chap. 11;Parente, Ares, & Manzoni, 2010;Stone & Sidel, 1986;Wortel & Wiechers, 2000).…”