The adaptive model of thermal comfort: Patterns of correlation

Abstract

gummary The reactions of children in a school classroom were noted at weekly intervals over a period including summer, autumn, spring and summer. To achieve thermal comfort they could adjust the number of items of clothing they wore, they could open windows to cool the room and switch lights on to warm it. These means of moderating the environment show relatively high correlation with the quantity to which adaptation was being made — temperature — and low correlation with the state to be achieved - thermal neutrality. These correlations can be arranged so as to demonstrate causal, co-variational and feedback relationships.