What appeals to human touch? Effects of tactual factors and predictability of textures on affinity to textures

For reasons that have not yet been investigated, some textures appeal to human touch. We investigate the relationships between the physical and sensory factors, the predictability of textures, and their appeal to human touch. We conduct sensory evaluation of 24 artificial clay textures, and the results are analyzed using factor analysis. Experimental results identify five sensory factors. We reveal that 70-80% of the textures´ appeal to human touch can be described on the basis of the sensory and physical factors. We propose two models involving the predictability of textures. These models, as well as models based on the sensory and physical factors, explain the affinity to textures.