Difference of tactile perception models by individuals and dominant factor of fabric hand for knitted fabric for underwear

In the textile industry, fabric hand is one of the crucial aspects that influence the value of fabric. However, the judgement of fabric hand may vary across subjects. Thus, this study proposes to group the subjects based on their evaluation of fabric hand, and the tactile sensations that are dominantly related to fabric hand are investigated. First, a sensory evaluation of eight knitted fabric samples was carried out using 14 verbal expressions of tactile sensation. These 14 verbal expressions were hierarchically classified into three stages which were called as low-order of tactile sensation, high-order of tactile sensation and lastly, fabric hand. After grouping the subjects by using cluster analysis, a principal component analysis was conducted in each stage of tactile sensation to gather the strong correlations of the verbal expressions. Then, the correlations between principal components of each stage were determined by multiple regression analysis. As a result, the study showed that the subjects could be mainly grouped into two. The former group expressed fabric hand as good when the fabric is soft and moist. On the other hand, the latter group defined good fabric hand when the fabric is silky and smooth.