Thermal comfort

Thermal comfort is a person's subjective sense of satisfaction with the thermal conditions of an environment. It depends on environmental conditions, clothing, activity, and individual differences.

Predicted Mean Vote: An index predicting the average thermal-sensation vote of a large group exposed to specified conditions. It combines environmental measurements and personal factors into a widely used comfort prediction.
Thermoregulation: The physiological processes that keep an organism's internal temperature within a viable range. The body's temperature regulation shapes how environmental warmth and cold are experienced.
ASHRAE Standard 55: A standard specifying conditions for acceptable thermal environments in buildings. It sets widely used criteria for assessing comfort in occupied indoor spaces.
Thermal acceptability: A person's judgment of whether a thermal environment is acceptable, rather than how comfortable it feels. Acceptability and satisfaction are related judgments, but they are not interchangeable.
Thermal alliesthesia: A change in the pleasantness of a thermal stimulus depending on a person's prior thermal state. It shows why the same temperature can feel pleasant or unpleasant at different times.
Predicted Percentage Dissatisfied: An estimate of the share of people likely to find a thermal environment uncomfortable. It translates predicted thermal sensation into an estimate of dissatisfaction.
Mean radiant temperature: The uniform temperature of an imaginary enclosure that would exchange the same radiant heat with a person as the actual surroundings. Radiant exchange can change comfort even when air temperature stays constant.
ISO 7730: An international standard for evaluating moderate thermal environments using comfort criteria and indices. It formalizes methods for applying PMV and related measures to buildings.
Thermal preference: A person's stated desire for a warmer, cooler, or unchanged thermal environment. Preference asks which direction conditions should change, not whether they are satisfying.
Thermal comfort diversity: Variation in thermal preferences and comfort responses among people and populations. A single prediction can obscure differences tied to physiology, culture, age, or experience.

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