A potential new fabric evaluation approach by capturing brain perception under fabric contact pressure

The problem of the transmission mechanism of textile perception and the barrier to express textile cognition directly are the two major issues in the field of textile evaluation. In this study, an advanced biomedical imaging technology, functional magnetic resonance imaging, which is non-invasive and has a high temporal resolution and spatial resolution, was utilized to describe the features of brain perception in the brain mask areas under increased fabric contact pressures, and thus it was attempted to provide a new approach to express fabric comfort perception. As a result, we found that when fabric contact pressure increased from 0.5 to 1.5 kPa, both maximum activation intensity TZ and activation proportion K of the peak points were transferred from the postcentral gyrus in the SI to the amygdala, and were negative activations. Therefore, we drew the conclusion that both a lower and a higher fabric contact pressure (about 1 kPa of proper comfort fabric pressure) would produce a brain signal inhibitory effect on the SI and amygdala. The difference was the fact that the inhibition role on the SI was more obvious under a lower pressure, while the inhibition role on the amygdala was more remarkable under a higher pressure, which meant that the SI, particularly the postcentral gyrus in the SI, was likely to play a significant role in surface tactile perception of fabrics, while the amygdala might be related to the fabric oppressing sensation.