Abstract: Customers’ first perceptual cognition of automobile seats impacts their evaluation and preference for the whole car. Eye tracker was used to test specific consumer groups’ visual perception of automobile seats in different fixation times and with different car types， whose results indicated that the backrest and neck attracted the participants’ attention most when they were visually stimulated by the seat in a short time. With the increase of fixation time， the participants tended to compare perceptual elements as such seat design， color， shape and material. Attention to a certain semantic form of the seat gradually developed into the combination of semantic transfer and emotions when the participants spent a long time choosing from various seats. Despite the discussion on customers’ real inner needs， there are still many uncertain facts in the experiments， which will be refined in the future research.

Key words: perceptual cognition, comfort, eye tracker, psychological cognitive process；customer demand design