Interaction improves perception of gloss

Rendering materials on displays becomes ubiquitous in industrial design, architecture, and visualization. Yet the experience of the material from other modes of perception is missing in that representation. This forces observers to rely on visual cues only while judging material properties. In the present study, we compare judgments of rough and glossy surfaces by interacting and passive observers. We investigate whether observers actively exploring rendered stimuli judge properties differently than observers passively watching renderings. Resulting interobserver agreement is significantly higher for interacting observers.