Visual–Tactual Incongruities in Products as Sources of Surprise

Abstract

The perception of a product through vision creates expectations of what will be perceived through touch. However, the tactual information perceived may disconfirm the expectations formed, resulting in a surprise reaction. In two experiments, participants' reactions to products with visual—tactual incongruities were studied. Participants were 100 students enrolled in the Industrial Design Engineering department at the authors' university. Our main aim was to investigate differences in reactions to two groups of products (“Visible Novelty” and “Hidden Novelty”) that are hypothesized to evoke two different surprise reactions. A group of control products without visual—tactual incongruities was also tested. Furthermore, different measures of surprise, such as self-reports of the intensity of the surprise, observational measures of exploratory behavior, vocal expressions, and facial expressions were explored. Clear differences were found in participants' reactions toward products in the control group versus products with visual—tactual incongruities. Reactions toward products in the two groups of surprising products differed only slightly.