Studies have shown that between 70 and 80 percent of all disease and illness is stress related. Stress research has shown that regulating environmental factors decreases the risk of stress related illnesses. Model to show different types of comfort.
There has recently been a considerable interest in the therapeutic potential of music. A neurological study involving subjects connected to an electroencephalograph (EEG device) while listening to slowtempo music revealed that the musical rhythm quickly synchronized brain rhythms to its beat an effect also seen with strobe lights.
Exposure to coloured light is another technique for promoting relaxation. Colour therapy has been traced back to ancient Egypt, where patients at a healing temple were treated in rooms designed to break up the sun’s rays into colours of the spectrum. I
The five senses overlap one another in perception and are not exclusive so that the study of a particular comfort conditions can not exclude the incidence of the four others. All five senses are working together in actively seeking information however the basic orienting and haptic systems are particularly relevant to the perception of the third dimension since they encompass the entire body. By placing the entire body at the centre of the perceptual experience, no other sense deals as directly with space as the hapticorienting system, engaging simultaneously feelings of temperature and movement.
There are three distinct but interrelated processes by the occupants:
- Physiological reaction by spontaneous thermoregulation
- Behavioural reaction by clothing, opening, shading adjustments
- Psychological reaction by expectation of the coming environmental conditions
Pioneering work in the field of thermal comfort by Bedford (1936) and then Humphrey (1975) suggested the phenomenon of ‘adaptation’. It suggested that when given the opportunity to choose, people have the ability to adapt over very wide ranges of thermal environments.
The adaptive opportunity theory suggests that the threshold of discomfort relates to the extent to which users can adapt to changing environmental conditions by behavioural adjustments, acclimatization and expectation. Occupants accepts a greater variably in natural phenomenon than in artificial environmental systems.
Comfort Analysis Method
Baker devised a ‘Portable Array for the Measurement of Physical Ambience’s’ PAMPA that subjectively evaluates ambient measurements. It is worn on the head of the user and therefore is non obstructive and non invasive of the occupants space. The device measures:
- Ambient Temperature
- Radiant Temperature
- Relative Humidity
- Air Movement
- Illuminance Levels
- Noise Level
- Air Quality
The ’PAMPA’ allows data recording during a maximum time of 12 hours at 10 second intervals.