• Design Convergence Study
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.47-56
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• 2015

People often use haptic experience as a basis for their preference decisions and value judgments, assuming that haptic experience with a product results from the properties of the products. However, research has suggested that unplanned haptic experience, which does not arise from the properties of the product itself, can also influence people's preference and value evaluation (Ackerman, Nocera, & Bargh, 2010). In this study, in order to verify (1) if such unplanned or accidental haptic experience changes user's cognitive tendency and (2) if accidental haptic experience leads to misattribution of the cause of haptic experience, two hypotheses were suggested and empirically investigated. Participants of the experiment were exposed to certain products on a display of a tablet PC and asked to decide on the maximum price they were willing to pay for each product. The products displayed on the screen were made up of either soft material or hard material. Results of the experiment revealed that accidental haptic experience had an effect on participants' value evaluation of products via altering their cognitive inclinations. Possible applicability of accidental haptic experiences that occur in various situations were discussed.