Thermal comfort and concentration in transitional spaces in severe cold area: The mediating role of thermal pleasure

Abstract

In order to study the thermal environment characteristics of transitional space in the cold area and its influence law on human thermal comfort, a field study was conducted in the transitional space of a university in Harbin. The transitional space was categorized into three types according to the location of the transitional space in different buildings. Comparative analysis of the differences between the thermal environment parameters of different transitional spaces and human thermal responses, such as thermal sensation and thermal comfort votes; proposed an adaptive thermal comfort model for transitional spaces; research on the participant’s preference for the choice of spatial location and the change rule of the subjective perception indexes (including the degree of attention, the degree of sleepiness and the degree of thermal pleasure). A thermal comfort model was proposed for transitional spaces. The results show that: the temperatures are falling within the range of 15.5 ∼ 17.5℃in three types of transitional spaces, lower than those in the classrooms and other closed spaces; and the thermal neutral temperature is 15.3 °C. Meanwhile, it is found that thermal pleasure can reduce sleepiness and enhance concentration to a certain extent. An indirect mediator-only model of thermal pleasure was developed. Temperature has a significant indirect effect on the degree of preoccupation through thermal pleasure, where the indirect effect of the mediation model accounts for 90.6 % of the total effect. And the mediating effect of thermal pleasure in the emotion-cognition process and its chain mechanism are proposed, which provides a new rationale for the design of transitional space environments.

And the mediating effect of thermal pleasure in the emotion-cognition process and its chain mechanism are proposed, which provides a new theoretical basis for the design of transitional space environment.