Construction of semantic pool and acquisition of semantic categories for automobile styling stance: A domain knowledge perspective

In recent years, the paradigm of “Art thinking” in automobile design has been based on automobiles having both high-tech and high-emotional attributes, relying on car design domain knowledge. The research in car design is indispensable for further developing proficiency in the automobile styling field, and semantic representation is an essential means of realization. In this paper, through online data collection, experts questionnaire from leading O.E.M.s and emerging E.V. companies, and word clustering surveys from transportation design students, 85 semantic attributes were identified, and six groups were obtained. Based on the research results, the semantic category patterns (S.C., D.C., V.T.C., E.C., B.C., G.C.), representative semantics (31 semantic words), and essential cognitive characters (dynamic, powerful, and aggressive) of automobile styling are proposed. The concept of automobile styling stance and its contents and categories are defined. Our findings offer reliable and reusable automobile styling domain knowledge and have implications for redefining cars’ body shapes and aesthetic styles.