Perception of printed special effects

Psychometric experiments were carried out in order to increase the understanding of how special effects influence the consumer perception of printed products. Seven different contents ranging from advertisements to covers of packages and annual reports were chosen and different special effect versions of each were created. The following types of special effects were used: metallic inks, selective gloss or pearlescent varnishing, and scented varnish. Conventional CMYK samples without special effects were also included in the sample set for reference. A total of 49 observers participated in the subjective assessment of the special effect print samples. An assessment session with a single observer consisted of a number of different assessment tasks and lasted for approximately 1.5 hours. Especially the gloss and pearlescent varnish effects were seen to increase the effectiveness of a printed product in attracting the viewers’ attention, compared to samples with no special effects. In some cases a significant improvement in the preference assessments was also achieved with the use special effects, particularly the two varnish effects mentioned above. Principal component analysis (PCA) was applied to distil from the large data set of subjective assessments (50 attributes of 12 print samples assessed by 49 observers, for a total of 29400 observations) the essential perceptual shifts caused by the printed special effects. The first two principal components explained the majority of perceived differences between the special effect print samples, and were interpreted to correspond to perceptual dimensions that were termed Noteworthiness and Aesthetic Value