Fashion is a ‘sense-itive’ matter

Psychologist Dr Lawrence Rosenblum speaks about how wardrobe and fabric choices are governed by unconscious factors.

BERLIN:

Dr Lawrence Rosenblum has been associated with the field of Cognitive Psychology for more than 30 years. Presently affiliated with the Department of Psychology at University of California, Rosenblum specialises in multimodal integration, audiovisual speech perception, auditory perception, face perception, and ecological approach to perception and action.

In his recent attempt at furthering the understanding of unconscious behaviour, he used behavioural experiments and research to demonstrate the unconscious influences on fashion and our daily lives. “One of the most profound discoveries of modern day psychology is how we feel things,” said Rosenblum, while speaking at a two-day event ‘Future Fabrics: The Science of the Beauty and Care of Clothes 14/15’, organised by P&G Future Fabrics and trend forecaster Premiere Vision.

The brain could be tricked into feeling something entirely different from what it is shown. PHOTOS: RAFAY MAHMOOD/EXPRESS

Rosenblum holds that the last 15 years of research in perceptual psychology have paved the way for a multi-sensory revolution, a field of study that requires the collective understanding of conscious and unconscious responses of all our senses put together. “What we assume is a simple experience of sight, sound, touch, smell or taste is actually an experience that is influenced by multiple senses at the same time, and much of this cross-sensory influence occurs unconsciously,” he comments.

The same applies to our choice of fabric and fashion choices. Multi-sensory perception plays an imperative role in our association with our wardrobe. Interestingly, most of these decisions that we make are governed by factors that we aren’t aware of.  By ‘feeling’ a certain fabric, with ‘feeling’ implying a collective experience of the senses of touch, smell and sight, we are able to draw certain inferences about clothes. This includes the feeling of luxury, which is evoked by touching a piece of silk, or the timelessness associated with leather.

“When choosing a garment, you may think your choice will be based on what you’re seeing, but think again,” stated Rosenblum. “You face a myriad of cross-sensory influences on your experience — what you see, how it feels to touch, what your nose smells, the look, feel and scent of your clothes — all combine to impact the relationship you have with them and your final decision of what to wear,” he added.

It’s also interesting to note the interdependence of our individual senses for a collective experience and how they can influence isolated experiences of the individual senses. For instance, sound can influence what you touch and smell can influence what you taste. “As you put your clothes back and forth in the closet, they release a smell that unconsciously influences your decision of what clothes to pick,” Rosenblum explained. “Similarly, people choose the mascara tube that makes just the right click when closed.”



In his book See What I’m Saying: The Extraordinary Powers of Our Five Senses, Rosenblum stipulates that much of what your nose does, it does it unconsciously. New research also points towards how the brain doesn’t simply react to unconscious input. It uses this input in meaningful ways that influence your judgment and behaviour.

This is also the reason why your brain could be tricked into feeling something else by showing something else, such as the smell of a shampoo would eventually dictate how it feels on our head. These are breakthrough discoveries in not only the realm of psychology but also in the business of fabrics, as they give us a better idea of how our relationship with our clothes evolves over time and how we can improve it.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 3^rd,  2014.

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