Title: A study on gender-kansei of three-dimensional geometric shapes

Authors: R.P.C. Janaka Rajapakse; Harinda Jayasinghe; Kazunori Miyata; Ashu Marasinghe; Yoshimasa Tokuyama

Addresses: Faculty of Engineering, Center for Hyper Media Research, Tokyo Polytechnic University, 1583 Iiyama, Atsugi, Kanagawa 243-0297, Japan ' School of Knowledge Science, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, 1-1 Asahidai, Nomi, Ishikawa 923-1292, Japan ' Center for Knowledge Science, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, 1-1 Asahidai, Nomi, Ishikawa 923-1292, Japan ' Department of Management and Information Systems, Nagaoka University of Technology, 1603-1 Kamitomioka, Nagaoka, Niigata 940-2188, Japan ' Faculty of Engineering, Department of Media and Image Technology, Tokyo Polytechnic University, 1583 Iiyama, Atsugi, Kanagawa 243-0297, Japan

Abstract: When designing a product, geometrical shape becomes one of the most important factors among other visual factors such as colour, material and texture. Some products have shapes or parts that do not fulfil the consumer's desires and needs. In other words, product shape directly influence the buying behaviour, hence worth to study perception of shape in terms of semantic association. This study targeted to investigate people's perception on gender of 3D shape in semantic association such as 'feminine' or 'masculine'. Three elements of 3D shape were considered to investigate its gender; they are variable base, variable sweep and variable axis. In this paper, we observed the effect of variable base on perceiving gender kansei of 3D shapes as an extension of our earlier work. To assess base-variance of 3D shape, we examined whether convexity and concavity of base in the context of sharp and curved forms. The results of our psychophysical experiments will be very important and will lead to develop successful Kansei-driven design.

Keywords: gender kansei; kansei engineering; shape categorisation; human sensitivity; geometric shape; product design; product shape; buying behaviour; semantic association; feminine; masculine; 3D shapes; psychophysical experiments.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBM.2012.049741

International Journal of Biometrics, 2012 Vol.4 No.4, pp.388 - 405

Received: 21 Oct 2011
Accepted: 24 Oct 2011
Published online: 29 Nov 2014 *

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