隨著社會的進步，經濟能力的成長帶動消費市場的轉變，消費者不再滿足於純粹的功能性，延伸而出的是功能消費以外的情感追求。在市場的激烈競爭下，情感的設計元素開始成為產品差異化的重要關鍵。如何拉攏消費者感受，產品感性儼然成為現階段重要的課題。而主宰著產品整體表現的產品材質至今卻鮮少以感性觀點進行探討。
目前針對材質選擇的研究多建立於工程觀點，鮮少探討材質在感性層面的特質；現今產品設計師在設計產品時除了須賦予產品良善的功能外更不能忽略產品在情感意涵的傳達，除了現階段被廣泛應用的形、色外，是否可以藉由材質自身的感性特質給予產品情感更多之可能性。
在生產製造技術的高度發展及產品高成熟度 (產品介面高標準化)的同時，產品如何在市場上找到區隔，便需要透過產品個性的差異化來達成。而產品個性來自於美學、產品聯想及產品知覺等面向(Ashby & Johnson, 2003)。研究者認為在產品設計的過程中運用材質感性意象可以進一步詮釋產品個性。材質的物理性質應用至產品上使產品具有相對應的功能性，反觀材質感性意象和產品個性之間存在何種相互關係？又每個產品都有其本身的個性，應用不同感性意象的材質是否會對產品個性造成影響?本研究以Mike Ashby在「The art of material selection」中所提出之產品特質剖析圖(The dissection of product character)為基礎，利用成對樣本T檢定和因素分析法，探討產品中材質感性對產品知覺(perception)之相互關係。其中材質感性意象雖有強弱之分，但其對產品知覺確實具一定程度的影響。

The growth of economic drives the transition of the consumer market, consumers no longer satisfied with product functionality, more than that is the emotional aspect which product brings out. Since Kansei Engineering has been wildly used in many different fields successfully, the emotional element has become the important key to product design under the keen competing market. In the meanwhile, the emotional aspect of product material, which decides overall product performance, is rarely been mentioned in early researches.
The research now study on product material focus on material’s physical properties but seldom probe into the sensorial properties, which related to the emotional aspect of product material. Except to give good functions to product, designers also need to improve the emotion meaning that express the product well. In this point of view, not only the different product forms and colors, designers can also use the sensorial properties of materials to help them express the emotion meaning of each product.
This research based on “The art of material selection” which written by Mike Ashby. He pointed out that product material affect product’s personalities, especially product perceptions which manage the emotion that each product brings out. In this research, we use Pair-Samples T Test and Factor Analysis to find out how do the sensorial properties of materials affect the product perception? The result shows that product materials do have their own sensorial properties and it in some way affects product perception.

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