A study of the pinch performance and subjective satisfaction with chopsticks of different lengths

¹ Department of Visual Communication Design, Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Tainan City 710, Taiwan
² Graduate School of Digital Content and Applied Design, Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Tainan City 710, Taiwan
³ Department of Industrial Design, National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei City 106, Taiwan

^a Corresponding author : ocean@stust.edu.tw

Abstract

Total 40 college students (16 males and 24 females), with an average age of 22, were surveyed in this study. The participants are highly familiar with the use of chopsticks and were tested with their handedness (95% of the participants are right-handers and 5% of the participants are left-handers). The control variable in this study is chopsticks 6 millimeters in diameter. Instruments used in this experiment were four pairs of chopsticks of different lengths:120 mm (Type A), 150 mm (Type B), 180 mm (Type C), 210 mm (Type D). Each participant was requested to randomly use these 4 pairs of chopsticks to pick up peanuts (10 millimeters in diameter). Least Significant Difference (LSD) was utilized for measuring quantity of pinched peanuts and participants’ satisfaction at four different types of chopsticks.. The research results revealed that quantity of pinched peanuts showed significant difference (p=0.017) when the length of chopsticks changed from 120 mm to 180 mm. In terms of satisfaction, it presented significant difference (p=0.001) among four types, and participants showed higher satisfaction at longer chopsticks. Correlation Analysis will be further applied in future study, with a larger quantity and a random approach, and the future study can be used to find out the most appropriate chopsticks length for the reference of chopsticks manufacturers.