Molly Talbot^1,2 (mn18met@leeds.ac.uk), Kaida Xiao^1,2, Ningtao Mao^1,2; ¹University of Leeds, ²Leeds Institute of Textiles and Colour

Fashion retail is an increasingly online market. Online, consumers rely on visual information without touch to infer garment feeling in a process termed visual-tactile perception. Vision acting as a proxy for touch introduces discrepancies between visual predictions and tactile perceptions. The relationship between visual appearance and tactile sensation is complex and not fully understood for garments as complex three-dimensional stimuli. This study aimed to examine whether visual judgements of tactile properties align with actual touch perception by analysing correlations across conditions, validating insights from prior fabric research while expanding understanding into three dimensions, considering both garment substance (surface texture, fibre composition) and structure (construction, mechanics) properties. A psychophysical scaling experiment was conducted with 37 garments representing varied categories and constructions. 20 participants rated each garment on 10 bipolar tactile dimensions (e.g., warm-cool, stiff-flexible, smooth-rough) using a 14-point interval scale under four conditions: touch-only, viewing on-screen, viewing in real life, and combined vision and touch. On-screen stimuli comprised high-resolution images and videos captured using a Sony Alpha series camera and presented on an EIZO display to preserve material appearance features like gloss, texture, and colour. Post-condition interviews provided qualitative insights into associations between appearance cues and tactile judgements. Findings reveal clear distinctions between surface and mechanical properties. Surface cues, including the presence and uniformity of gloss, showed strong associations with smoothness and slipperiness, while surface density evidenced the strongest cross-modal correlations. Mechanical properties were mixed: stretchiness and flexibility were visually predictable, whereas recoverability from creases and deformation showed poor agreement. Across conditions, visual-tactile judgements correlated most strongly. This study reveals vision’s strong relationship with touch in perceiving properties of surface and density and their inconsistencies in perceiving structure and mechanics, highlighting both the predictive capabilities of consumers’ vision and priors and the limitations of vision as a proxy for touch.

Acknowledgements: This work is funded by the Leeds Institute of Textiles and Colour (LITAC)