Abstract
In daily life, we are able to discriminate various materials by sophisticated feel of object surface. On the other hand, it has been considered that unique physical parameters like surface contrast and distinctness represent psychological attributes like gloss and smoothness, respectively (Fleming et al., 2001). Here, the suitability of this simple correspondency between physical parameters and psychological attributes was tested in two experiments. Contrast and distinctness were defined as the degree of specular and diffuse reflectance, respectively. We used spherical objects as stimuli, whose surface reflects natural scenes. Participants evaluate the degrees of gloss and smoothness. Greenish and monochrome surfaces were used in Experiments 1& 2, respectively. As a result, both gloss and smoothness could be explained regressively by two physical parameters of contrast and distinctness in high correlation. That is, both subjective evaluation, gloss and smoothness, were the result of interaction between two physical parameters at least. This means that these subjective attributes are not simple but might involve multiple factors. And different regression equations were provided by Experiments 1 and 2. This suggests that the color tone is also a determinant of gloss and smoothness.