Differences in comfort perception in relation to local and whole body skin wettedness

Relevance of local skin wettedness (w _local) to general thermal comfort while wearing clothing was investigated in eight males. In the experiments, skin wettedness of the whole body (w _body) was controlled to be around the thermal comfort limit, while w _local in different target locations of equal area (anterior and dorsal torso, arms, and thighs) was pushed beyond the comfort limit using special test garments. Subjects walked on a treadmill at 4.5 km h⁻¹ under 22°C 50% RH. Arms and thighs were thermally in discomfort when their w _local exceeded 0.32. On the other hand, discomfort in the anterior and dorsal torso was initiated when their w _local arrived at 0.42 and 0.45. That is, the relation of the local comfort limit with w _local differed depending upon the location. It was observed; however, that general discomfort was not induced when w _body remained below 0.36 even if w _local was higher than its local comfort limit.