Examination of the relationships between subjective clothing comfort assessment and physiological parameters with wear trials

Abstract

The paper explores the relationship between subjective assessment of wearing comfort and objectively determined physiological parameters (mean skin temperature, skin relative humidity, amount excreted in sweat absorbed in clothing) in a warm environment. The experiment involved five young girls who wore two different models of women’s summer clothing (women’s dresses and women’s blouse plus shorts) made from five different raw materials, but of nearly identical structural characteristics. The investigation consisted of 450 individual tests. All wearing trial tests were performed under artificially designed ambient conditions within a computer-controlled climatic chamber. It was found that there existed a relationship between subjective assessment of wearing comfort and objectively determined physiological parameters of the test subjects. The statistical analysis results showed that coefficients of multiple linear regression in dependence of the subjective assessment of the degree of skin moisture W_skin on climatic conditions had the value of R²= 0.87, based on physiological parameters, such as skin temperature T_skin and skin relative humidity RH_skin (R²= 0.90), and on the amount of excreted sweat E_sweat and the amount of sweat absorbed within clothing W_sweat (R²= 0.87).