Assessment of Perceived Intensity and Thermal Comfort Associated with Area of Warm Stimulation to the Waist

摘要

A wearable thermal stimulation device can easily provide a thermally comfortable environment that suits personal preferences using lower electric power than air conditioning devices. This study investigates the influence of an area of warm stimulation on the waist to efficiently design a device that can provide higher thermal comfort to users. A device that could apply warmth on the waist by using four thermal units that utilize the Peltier element was developed. The experiment performed to determine spatial perception showed that the participants could not recognize a difference in the spatial pattern of stimulation using the developed device correctly. Furthermore, the results of experiments that evaluated the perceived intensity and the comfort indicated that a larger area of warm stimulation increased not only the perceived intensity but also the thermal comfort, whereas the intensity of the stimulation had less effect on the thermal comfort than the perceived intensity. Therefore, it is better to increase the area rather than the intensity of warm stimulation to improve the comfort provided by the thermal device.