Modeling perceptions using common impressions: Perceptual “authenticity,” “luxury,” and “quaintness” for leather

Genuine leather has numerous applications, such as car interiors and clothing, owing to its excellent quality. However, due to the high cost of genuine leather, animal rights issues, and environmental effects of leather processing, artificial leather has increasingly replaced genuine leather. The materials and processing methods used for artificial and genuine leathers are different, resulting in a variety of impressions and shitsukan, that is, the sense of quality of the object. In this study, we focused on the perceptual “authenticity,” “luxury,” and “quaintness,” which are important components needed to achieve the shitsukan of leather used in various products and examined the quantification of qualitative shitsukan using a perception model. We hypothesized that shitsukan can be recognized from the common potential impressions perceived from the properties of a material. Therefore, we developed a method for evaluating shitsukan using representative words for impressions that we perceive in objects and measured their image properties. The physical and psychophysical properties were obtained using several measurements. Multi-angle measuring devices were developed for the measurement experiments. Moreover, several subjective evaluation experiments were conducted to estimate the representative impressions that were potentially perceived in leather. Subsequently, we estimated two independent impressions, “surface shape” and “impression of stateliness” from the properties of leather. In addition, “authenticity,” “luxury,” and “quaintness,” were quantified using simple equations basis the impressions.