Fabric Hand-Feel Evaluation Based on Neurophysiology: An Event- Related Potential Study

Fabric hand-feel is an important indicator of textile comprehensive evaluation. In the past century, many achievements have been made in characterization and evaluation of fabric hand-feel. With the development of experimental methods, the electrophysiological technique was used in exploring the formation mechanism and cognitive principle of fabric hand-feel. In this paper, event-related potential (ERP) technique was used in revealing the difference of handfeel between polyester and silk. The exogenous component P2 showed that polyester caused more excitability in human brain. However, the endogenous component P3 indicated that silk caused more soft and comfortable feelings. Even more amazingly, touching fabrics caused significant activation of the visual cortex from the Brain Electrical Activity Mapping (BEAM), and it is also shown that the potential distribution evoked by grasping silk is wider than the polyester’s. All the experiment results show that potential variation of the cerebral cortex is closely related to perceptual cognition and process. All the above findings show that event-related potential technique is feasible and effective in detecting the differences of tactile cognition, and it provides objective evidence from neurophysiologic in fabric hand-feel research.