1. A product design engineering approach to enable affective product design
of foods using kansei engineering with visual descriptors
Quantification of the emotional space of the consumer response to food consumption
D. Weiss1, F. Cullen1, J. Oliveira2 and R. Burke1
1 DIT, School of Culinary Arts and Food Technology; 2Dept. Process and Chemical Engineering, University College Cork
Kansei Engineering:
a method to seek the emotional response
In Japan the feeling about something is called Kansei. This is the
impression in a person created by an artefact, environment or
situation using all senses of sight, hearing, feeling, smell, taste as
well as their recognition. (Nagamachi, 2002).
Kansei engineering wants to uncover the triggers (in the product)
and find what feeling they trigger (in us). Seeking to probe the
brain processes that are instinctive and emotional (System 1),
rather than what is deliberate and logical (System 2, in Kahneman
& Frederick, 2002 nomenclature).
References
Kahneman, D., & Frederick, S. (2002). Representativeness revisited: Attribute substitution in intuitive
judgment. In T. Gilovich, D. Griffin & D. Kahneman (Eds.), Heuristics and Biases (pp. 49–81). New
York: Cambridge University Press.
Koster, E.P. (2002). The psychology of food choice: some often encountered fallacies. Food Quality and
Preference, 14: 359-373
Nagamachi, M. (2002): Kansei engineering as a powerful consumer-oriented technology for product
development, Applied Ergonomics, Vol. 33, pp. 289-294.
Osgood, C.E. & Snider, J.G. (1969): Semantic differential technique – a sourcebook, Aldine publishing company,
Chicago.
Stanovich, K. E., & West, R. F. (2000). Individual differences in reasoning: Implications for the rationality debate.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23, 645–665.
Contact
Dietmar Weiss
dietmar.weiss@mydit.ie
New proposal: a visual-based method
Conventional Kansei engineering mimics Osgood's concepts and
methods for a semantic space (Osgood & Snider, 1969), applying it to
product assessment which thus defines an emotional space by
association. The method involves loosely defined verbal descriptors (the
kansei words), paired in a semantic differential scale, that by clustering
with a Principal Component Analysis reveal an emotional space (set of
axis), quantified in this manner.
However, words, specially when written in English, require that the
verbal mechanisms of the brain that we would wish to tone down are
stimulated. Thus, we propose to use image descriptors instead of words
to maximise the visual and affective dimensions of the response to
product use.
Example of one pair of pictures with a semantic differential scale to be used
instead of pairs of kansei words
Question
precise rational judgement
rationalisation of
instinctive response
what do market
surveys give ?
how do we probe the
emotional response?
kansei descriptors
emotional space
conative do as usual
go with your guts
think about it
affective
cognitive
Market Observations
Kansei Engineering
Market Surveys
Product Development
Behavioural psychology revealed that the mental processes underpinning decisions are far from linear.
Market surveys only assess the very end of a complex process.
the consumer response
Introduction
Developing winning food products
requires understanding consumer's
preferences and choice mechanisms.
Affective, visceral reactions, are a base
of most buying and likening decisions.
We propose a modified Kansei
Engineering method to enable affective
product design of foods.