A Study on Consumers Emotional Responses and Event-Related Potential Evoked by Bionic Product Form

A product with emotion has a greater chance to catch users’ attentions in a compatative market. As facts, a product with bionic form seems can evoke consumers’ emotions easier. Thus, it is important to understander how consumers emotional responses and event-related potential evoked when perceiving a Bionic product and how the signal responses difference in there brains. Followed the increasing of living standard, consumers expect to have a batter quality of lives. Nowadays, consumers require a product having not only functional satisfaction, but also emotional attraction. Designers therefore expect to develop a product with emotions. In acdamic research, Norman (2007) has classified consumers into three levels: 1) Visceral level emotion 2. Behavioral level emotion 3. Reflective level emotion. These three emotional levels have connections to Bionic design methods: Bionic forms, Bionic behaviors, and Bionic patterns. Thus, it is importent to study the connections between Bionic form and Norman’s emotional levels responses. The appearance of a product can evoke consumers’ emotions. Berlyne (1970) found that consumers may increase their positive emotion, followed with the increasement of complecated shape of a product. However, the emotional incresement will stop and turn town at a critical point, when a product form becoming extreamed complication. This result can also explain how consumers emotional responses when perceiving geometric form (e.g., abstract form) and complicated forms (e.g., concteted forms) (Seyama & Nagayama, 2007). We assume that prior result may repeated at bionic forms in terms of abstract and concreted forms. In this research, we will conduct two experiments and apply ERP (Event-Related Potential) method in order to catch and assess brains signals from participants. This research tends to explore: 1) the emotional responses evoked from perceiving Bionic shapes between abstract and concreted forms. 2) consumers’ preferences derived from perceiving Bionic shapes between abstract and concreted forms. 3) Norman’s three levels of emotional responses evoked from Bionic forms. 4) the EEG responses and active areas of brains. The results hopefully can provide designers some guides, when designing emotional products with bionic forms.

Project ID:PE10308-0389
External Project ID:MOST103-2410-H182-017