LUXURY CUES OF CREAM HEIGHTEN THE REWARD VALUE 87 Table I Correlations between the VS and the Other Regions Session 1 Session 3 Cream A Cream B Cream A Cream B Region R2 p R2 p R2 p R2 p SI (Right) 0.067 n.s. 0.118 n.s. 0.315 0.007 0.013 n.s. SII (Left) 0.196 n.s. 0.041 n.s. 0.262 n.s. 0.000 n.s. SII (Right) 0.279 0.012 0.089 n.s. 0.322 0.006 0.044 n.s. DLPFC 0.054 n.s. 0.087 n.s. 0.504 0.000 0.241 n.s. n.s., non-signifi cance visual information that it was luxury but not before it, which is in agreement with our previous results. Here, the r ight SII contralateral to the massaged left hand showed a signifi cant correla- tion with the VS with the conditions for cream A both before and after providing the visual information that it was luxurious. The SII is closely adjacent and highly intercon- nected with the insula, which is involved in affective touch (11–13). In addition, the SII has wider receptive fi elds and higher order functions (multimodal) than the SI. These facts suggest that this region is engaged in both affective and discriminative touch. More- over, cream A was evaluated to be smoother, softer, and spread better than cream B, sug- gesting that A was more rewarding than B. Accordingly, the connection between the SII and VS may represent the emotional value based on the goodness of texture. By contrast , the SI is more involved in discriminative somatosensory information processing than the SII. However, the activity of this region may be modulated by some top-down regulations in the human brain. Placebo-induced enhancement of pleasant experiences involves the upregulation of activity in the SI (14). In addition, somatosensory afferents to the SI are regulated by the descending pain modulatory system under the control of the mid-lateral orbitofrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex even with mild somatosensory F i g ure 4. The values of the averaged activation in each brain region. SI, SII, DLPFC, VS.

JOURNAL OF COSMETIC SCIENCE 88 stimulation, suggesting that pleasant touch opens the gate to the SI (15). Here, the SI showed a positive correlation with the VS during the application of cream A only after providing the visual information, but not before it. This result suggests that SI activity is involved in a top-down regulation of ascending somatosensory information. Although the same process would have been observed in the fi rst session as shown in the SII, the effect only from the tactile stimuli in SI was not signifi cant probably because of such a small effect size from the difference of the textures for the SI, which is primarily in charge of discriminative processes to induce the feedback regulation. The aforeme ntioned results suggest that the emotional value based on texture is mainly processed in the connection between the contralateral SII and the VS, and luxury cues further facilitate this connection and the additional connection between the VS and the SI, which is involved in discriminating the physical aspects of creams. That is, somato- sensory information processing in the human brain may also be modulated by luxury cues as the social dominance–related process is. In the pres ent study, we observed neural processes that indicate the association between somatosensory areas (SI and SII) whose activities are affected not only by texture but also by product information and the reward-related area (VS) that was observed to have a con- nection to the social dominance–related area (DMPFC) indirectly via the DLPFC in our previous study (1), suggesting that the consumer experience of the textures of skincare products can be amplifi ed by appropriate information on the products. The consumer experience accompanying emotional satisfaction not only of pleasantness simply from the texture but also of feelings of social dominance is induced in the interaction between these brain regions in top-down and bottom-up processes. Further investigation of the process in which consumers are satisfi ed with the texture of a skincare product interacting with product information may be helpful for developing more attractive products based on emotional values. Fi g u re 5. The values of the averaged score for the sensory evaluation. Participants evaluated the texture of creams for each item from -3 (do not feel at all) to +3 (feel very much).