M. Kergoat, A. Giboreau, P. Faye, H. Nicod, T. Meyer
To characterize consumers according to their sensory preferences remains a big challenge. Most of the time, current collected factors (age, gender, etc.) are not sufficient to provide an understanding of who are these consumers. Based on an individual differences perspective, we applied this approach to identify individual clusters resulting from a sensory evaluation. Several personality scales are tested and applied to the case of the hedonic evaluation of fabrics. In a first study, six different seat car textiles known as clustering products were assessed on general, visual and tactile liking by 100 subjects, and following a literature review, several individual differences measures were collected among this sample.
From the classification run on general liking two clusters emerged, a group showing a clear preference for velvet fabrics, another group liking more woven & knitten and stitch 3D fabrics. ANOVAS performed in order to observe individual differences between our clusters revealed two measures as accounting for sensory preferences: the Affect Intensity Measure (AIM, Larsen, 1984) and the Rational-Experiential Inventory (REI, Epstein & al., 1996). The velvet “likers” subjects declared themselves as experiencing more intensively their emotions while the other group appeared to rely more on feelings when evaluating objects.
To summarize, groups’ distinction lies in what some subjects do (the use of feelings as a basic cognitive process to form judgment) or how some subjects do (the fact to experience emotions more intensively).
To confirm these results, a second study was realized on a student population with the same methodology and the same set of fabrics. A similar classification was obtained, and once again, but as a trend, AIM and REI accounted for clusters of preferences.
Possible tracks of interpretation are discussed, considering individual differences from the psychological angle, the significance of sensory inputs, linked to the context of evaluation.
