| Abstract: | This paper investigates the conscious experience of thermal transients, both experimentally and by means of a model of dynamic thermoreception. The experiments involved a sample of twelve human subjects, each undergoing twelve different ambient temperature step-changes. The research design included both temperature up-steps and down-steps, clothed and naked subjects, and transients both away from, and towards, neutrality. Each experiment lasted three hours, with the step- change occurring after 1.5 h when the subjects crossed between the twin climate chambers. Immediate sensations resulting from the temperature up-steps closely resembled later steady-state responses to the warmer environment, while initial impressions of temperature down-steps were typically twice the magnitude of their up-step counterparts. These experimental findings were accurately simulated by a simple thermoreceptor model coupled to a numerical model of heat transfer through clothing and cutaneous tissue. This heightened subjective sensitivity to temperature down-steps was achieved with the model by taking the subcutaneous depth of cold thermoreceptors to be less than that of the warm units, as noted by Hensel in his review of this specialized field (1981). |
