Experimental Study on Thermal Cognition Developed through DailyExperience in the Built Environment during Summer Seasons

This paper discusses whether there is thermalcognition acquired through daily experience inthe built environment during summer seasons.For this purpose, we analysed the results of asubjective experiment to reveal the relationshipbetween subjective responses andenvironniental quantities obtained from twoexperimental small wooden buildings: one has aradiative cooling system on the ceiling and theother has a conventional convective coolingsystem. The ceiling surface temperature of thebuilding with radiative cooling was controlled ataround 26C, much higher than that of theconventional radiative cooling panels. This isbecause our investigation of this experimentoriginally aimed at clarifying the threshold levelof thermal cognition provided by hightemperatureradiative cooling systems.We classified the lifestyles of 35 participatedsubjects into two types: one is to use mainlyconvective cooling and the other to use mainlynatural ventilation for long hours. We alsosorted out the same subjects into the other twotypes, whether they like air-conditioned roomspace or dislilte it.The percentage of comfort votes decreases asthe indoor radiant temperature increases. Thesame was true for room air temperature. Thepercentage of comfort votes drops sharplybeyond 30C in this experiment. There is aclear difference in the percentage of colnfortvotes between those who prefer air conditionedroom spaces and those who dislike it. There is atendency that those who dislike air conditionedspace accept room spaces with higher humidity,e.g. over 60 % rh, provided that both meanradiant and air temperatures are lower than 30C.It suggests that there exists acquired thermalcognition developed through daily experience inthe built environment, which is different fioniperson to person depending on what kind ofcooling he or she has been exposed to.