Describing product experience in different languages: The role of sensory modalities

Abstract

People describe their product experiences using adjectives that can be divided into three groups: sensory descriptors (e.g., hard, red, noisy); symbolic descriptors (e.g., interesting, expensive, modern); and affective descriptors (e.g., pleasant, beautiful). All product experiences rely on information from sensory modalities. We developed a questionnaire approach to quantify the relative importance of the five sensory modalities for various descriptors of product experience. The approach was used in two studies that employed Dutch and Russian participants. The results demonstrate that the importance of a sensory modality differs for various groups of descriptors. Most symbolic descriptors demonstrated strong visual dominance. Affective descriptors were equally related to all sensory modalities. Sensory descriptors showed significant cross-cultural differences. The latter result can be explained by the different associations between literal and metaphorical meanings of sensory adjectives in different languages.