• Key message

Visual perception of the appearances of different wood surfaces is greatly influenced by their features, such as color, grain, and gloss. Among these features, human visual perception of wood grain type occurs through a later and higher-ordered cognitive process than the perception of color or gloss. Dark wood was subjectively preferred to light- or medium-colored wood, and both matte and glossy wood were preferred to semigloss wood.

• Context

Understanding how the appearance of wood is processed in visual perception is critical for wood product design and will help improve consumer satisfaction. Unlike traditional subjective evaluation, neuroscientific methods enable a quantitative understanding of the process and are sensitive to the human visual perceptual response to the appearance of wood surfaces.

• Aims

The objectives of this study were to quantify the visual perception process and to explore the human neural activity elicited by different wood surface appearances.

• Methods

Three types of wood differing in color (light, medium, and dark) were cut to expose two different grain types (radial and tangential) and finished to three different gloss values (matte, semigloss, and glossy); digital images of these stimuli were shown to the subjects on a screen. A subjective emotion scale was constructed to measure their subjective evaluation, and neural ERP (event-related potential) data reflecting subjects’ early visual perception were recorded. Finally, all the data underwent analysis of variance as well as correlation analysis.

• Results

Regarding early visual perception, the measurements of relevant ERP components showed that subjects perceived the color and gloss of wood more quickly than the grain type, and their perception of wood grain involved a higher-order cognitive process. The match or mismatch between a given stimulus and a subject’s visual memory of wood surface appearance could enhance different ERP components, respectively. In addition, subjects had significantly greater appreciation for dark wood than for other colors, and semigloss wood was less favored than matte or glossy wood.

• Conclusion

This study provides an objective method to measure the visual perceptual processing of wood appearance; this method may help improve the efficiency of material selection for wood product design. Furthermore, the quantification method can be used by designers in measuring their wood products, and the results can be treated as indicators by which to evaluate the appearance of wood.

中文翻译：

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不同木材表面的视觉感知：与事件相关的电位研究

• 关键信息

不同木材表面外观的视觉感知在很大程度上受其特征（例如颜色，纹理和光泽度）的影响。在这些特征中，人类对木纹类型的视觉感知比对颜色或光泽的感知通过更晚，更高级的认知过程发生。主观上，深色木材优于浅色或中等颜色的木材，而哑光和有光泽的木材均比半光泽的木材更受青睐。

• 上下文

了解木质外观如何以视觉感知进行处理对于木质产品设计至关重要，这将有助于提高消费者满意度。与传统的主观评估不同，神经科学方法可以对过程进行定量理解，并且对人类对木质表面外观的视觉感知反应敏感。

• 目的

这项研究的目的是量化视觉感知过程，并探索由不同木材表面外观引起的人类神经活动。

• 方法

切割三种颜色（浅色，中度和深色）的木材，以暴露出两种不同的纹理类型（径向和切向），并精加工成三种不同的光泽度值（哑光，半光泽和光泽度）；这些刺激的数字图像在屏幕上显示给受试者。建立主观情感量表以测量他们的主观评价，并记录反映受试者早期视觉感知的神经ERP（事件相关电位）数据。最后，所有数据都经过方差分析和相关性分析。

• 结果

关于早期视觉感知，相关ERP组件的测量表明，受试者感知木材的颜色和光泽要比谷物类型更快，并且他们对木材纹理的感知涉及一个更高阶的认知过程。给定刺激与对象对木材表面外观的视觉记忆之间的匹配或不匹配可以分别增强不同的ERP组件。此外，受试者对深色木材的欣赏程度明显高于对其他颜色的欣赏，并且半光泽木材的受欢迎程度不及亚光或光滑木材。

• 结论

这项研究提供了一种客观的方法来衡量木材外观的视觉感知过程。这种方法可能有助于提高用于木制品设计的材料选择的效率。此外，设计人员可以使用量化方法测量其木材产品，并将结果作为评估木材外观的指标。