The softness of objects can be perceived through several senses. For instance, to judge the softness of a cat's fur, we do not only look at it, we often also run our fingers through its coat. Recently, we have shown that haptically perceived softness covaries with the compliance, viscosity, granularity, and furriness of materials (Dovencioglu, Üstün, Doerschner, & Drewing, 2020). However, it is unknown whether vision can provide similar information about the various aspects of perceived softness. Here, we investigated this question in an experiment with three conditions: in the haptic condition, blindfolded participants explored materials with their hands, in the static visual condition participants were presented with close-up photographs of the same materials, and in the dynamic visual condition participants watched videos of the hand-material interactions that were recorded in the haptic condition. After haptically or visually exploring the materials, participants rated them on various attributes. Our results show a high overall perceptual correspondence among the three experimental conditions. With a few exceptions, this correspondence tended to be strongest between haptic and dynamic visual conditions. These results are discussed with respect to information potentially available through the senses, or through prior experience, when judging the softness of materials.

中文翻译：

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柔软度的外观和感觉在不同的柔软度维度上是相似的。

物体的柔软度可以通过多种感官来感知。例如，要判断猫皮毛的柔软程度，我们不仅要看它，还经常用手指穿过它的皮毛。最近，我们已经表明，触觉感知的柔软度与材料的柔顺性、粘度、粒度和毛皮度相关（Dovencioglu、Üstün、Doerschner 和 Drewing，2020 年）。然而，视觉是否可以提供关于感知柔软度的各个方面的类似信息尚不清楚。在这里，我们在三个条件下的实验中研究了这个问题：在触觉条件下，蒙住眼睛的参与者用手探索材料，在静态视觉条件下，参与者看到相同材料的特写照片，在动态视觉条件下，参与者观看了在触觉条件下记录的手与材料交互的视频。在对材料进行触觉或视觉探索后，参与者对它们的各种属性进行评分。我们的结果显示了三个实验条件之间的高度整体感知对应。除了少数例外，触觉和动态视觉条件之间的这种对应关系往往最强。在判断材料的柔软度时，这些结果将根据通过感官或通过先前经验获得的潜在信息进行讨论。我们的结果显示了三个实验条件之间的高度整体感知对应。除了少数例外，触觉和动态视觉条件之间的这种对应关系往往最强。在判断材料的柔软度时，这些结果将根据通过感官或通过先前经验获得的潜在信息进行讨论。我们的结果显示了三个实验条件之间的高度整体感知对应。除了少数例外，触觉和动态视觉条件之间的这种对应关系往往最强。在判断材料的柔软度时，这些结果将根据通过感官或通过先前经验获得的潜在信息进行讨论。