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PurposeThe purpose of this study was to investigate the psychological response to changes in temperature and humidity near the skin, and the psychological factors of thermal discomfort.Design/methodology/approachThe experiments involved changing the temperature and humidity from a neutral to a hot-humid environment, and vice versa, every 30 min. The psychological response to temperature (which ranged from 24 to 40°C) and humidity (which ranged from 30 to 80% relative humidity) was investigated.FindingsThe sensory scores shifted according to the direction of the change in temperature and humidity. The environment seemed to be evaluated relatively, whereby the sensory perception was dependent on the prior thermal environment. The psychological response to changes in temperature and humidity near the skin tended to shift from simple situational perceptions, such as feeling hot, to stifling and uncomfortable perceptions, and finally to the perception of dullness. Examining the psychological components revealed that the uncomfortable feeling was affected by “stifling” and “sweaty” perceptions with increasing temperature, by “stifling”, “sweaty”, and “sticky” perceptions with decreasing temperature, by “stifling”, “dull”, “sticky”, and “hot” perceptions with increasing humidity, and by “sweaty”, “dull”, and “humid” perceptions with decreasing humidity.Originality/valueThis study identified the psychological response that accompanies changes in temperature and humidity near the skin, as well as the psychological components of discomfort associated with changes in temperature and humidity. These results provide insights into the microclimate and thermal comfort of clothing.

The clothing comfort sensation is a combination of complex components, including psychological and physiological responses. General linear analysis is not always sufficient for the evaluation of the clothing comfort sensation. The current study sought to predict the clothing comfort sensation of wearing an undershirt using an artificial neural network (ANN). We constructed ANN models with psychological sensation data and physiological response data as inputs, including electrocardiogram and thermo-physiological indicators, and the clothing comfort sensation as the output. For the input layer of the model, three conditions were used: the psychological response data only, the physiological response data only, and both the psychological and physiological data. The number of hidden layers in the models ranged from one to three, and the number of units in each hidden layer was changed when fixed values of 30, 60, and 90 were used, or according to the number of data points in the input conditions. The results revealed that, among the three conditions, the accuracy rate was higher when both psychological and physiological response data were used as input. The prediction results exhibited an accuracy rate of up to 85% for unknown test data. The results suggest that the method of evaluating the state of clothing comfort sensation when wearing an undershirt using psychophysiological response measurement was effective and that neural networks are useful for predicting the clothing comfort sensation.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the physique difference and psychophysiological response under clothing pressure by a waist belt. Design/methodology/approach The influences of clothing pressure on physiological and psychological responses were evaluated by the following measurements: functional near-infrared spectroscopy, electrocardiogram and sensory evaluation. The authors investigated the correlation between the anthropometric data and psychophysiological response data. Findings There were significant correlations between body fat and physiological responses. It was suggested that differences in body fat affect changes in cerebral hemodynamics and heart rate due to clothing pressure. It is inferred that the participants having lower body fat reacted more sensitively to the compression stimulus, while those having higher body fat were more tolerant of physiological reactions to compression stimulus. Originality/value This paper has presented the necessity of clothing comfort evaluation considering individual differences in physique due to body fat.

In the present study, the comfort properties of knitted fabrics made from a two-ply yarn comprising a paper yarn and a cotton yarn were investigated. The objective was to elucidate the characteristics of paper yarn in comparison with cotton in terms of the design and development of comfortable and ecofriendly textiles that directly contact the skin. A two-ply yarn comprising a paper yarn made from abacá and a cotton yarn was prepared. Five fabrics with different proportions of paper were prepared by changing the knitting ratio of the two-ply yarn to a 100% cotton yarn. The mechanical properties (tensile, shearing, bending, compression, surface, contact area, and air permeability properties) and various thermal and moisture-transport properties of the fabric samples were determined. Those investigations revealed that the surface roughness increased, the friction coefficient decreased, the contact area decreased (in both the dry and wet state), the air permeability increased, the thermal conductivity increased, and the moisture diffusivity increased as the proportion of paper yarn increased. The fabric consisting of only the two-ply yarn was noticeably stiffer than the fabrics that also contained a pure cotton yarn. The results suggest the possibility of developing clothes that feel comfortable next to the skin, even when wet (e.g. underwear and socks) by knitting the two-ply yarn in a well-balanced ratio with cotton yarns.

The purpose of our study is to investigate the effect of clothing pressure on physiological and psychological responses in order to create a method for evaluation of clothing comfort. We get much information through visual sensation, so studies on the influences of visual information on clothing pressure sensation is very important. In this paper, we have measured physiological and psychological responses in the clothing pressure sensation under 3 visual conditions; Condition 1 was that the subjects had their eyes open and looked forward, Condition 2 was that the subjects looked at themselves in a mirror, and Condition 3 was that the subjects without a waist belt look at other subjects who wore a fastened waist belt. We concluded that it is important to consider the effects of visual information as well as the effect of clothing pressure sensation in the evaluation of clothing comfort sensation., Article, International Journal of Affective Engineering.14(1):51-56(2015)

The purpose of this study is to clarify key factors for evaluating comfort sensation when wearing a cosmetic face mask. As a result of sensory tests of wearing face masks, the most important factor related to comfort was facial skin contact feeling. As a result of material property tests, we extracted coefficients of dynamic friction and elasticity as comfort factors.