Measuring Visual Response to Clothing

Two groups of females differing in age, students and nonstudents, were presented with five photographs of clothed bodies. Each subject was asked to respond to each photograph using an instrument made up of 56 semantic scales. The scales were chosen to represent a range of responses encountered in the visual perception of the clothed body. Multivariate analysis methods were used to test for differences among the costumes, the two observer groups, and the observers within the groups. Consistency in response to the costumes was found between the two groups. The residual vectors were analyzed by principal components and word pairs which were rated similarly were grouped and interpreted. The evaluative component which explained the largest variance included words such as like‐dislike and fashionable‐unfash ionable. The next four components included word pairs relating to uncertainty, complexity, and potency. 1980 American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences