Indoor thermal comfort research using human participants: Guidelines and a checklist for experimental design

Abstract

Thermal comfort dictates our alliesthesia and behavioural responses in indoor environments with the primary aim of maintaining the thermal homeostasis of our human body. The recent advances in neurophysiology research have suggested that thermal comfort is a physiological response that is regulated by the deviations of both skin and core temperatures. Therefore, when conducting thermal comfort using indoor occupants in an indoor environment, proper experimental design and standardisation should be followed. However, there is no published source that provides an educational guideline on how to properly implement the thermal comfort experiment in an indoor environment using indoor occupants (normal occupational activities and during sleep in a home-based setting). Therefore, the primary purpose of this work is to illustrate how to conduct indoor thermal comfort related experiments using human trials in both normal occupational activities and during sleep in a home-based setting. Furthermore, we hope that the information presented in this article will result in better experimental design when conducting the experiment on thermal comfort using indoor occupants (occupational and home-based environments). Due to this reason, special emphasis will be focused on the experimental design, selection of participants and experimental standardisation. The key summary of this article is that thermal comfort related to indoor occupants in an indoor environment should perform priori sample analysis and follow the proper experimental design and standardisation as outlined in this article.

Keywords: Cognitive test; Experimental rigor; Productivity; Sleeping; Thermal comfort; Thermal perceptions.