A Human Factors Evaluation of Cold-Wet Handwear

Abstract

Abstract : Subjects performed a battery of manual performance tasks (Torque Test, Minnesota Two-Hand Turning Test, O'Connor Fine Finger Dexterity Test, Cord Manipulation and Cylinder Stringing Test, Bennett Hand Tool Dexterity Test) under six handwear conditions; bare-handed, standard leather glove, impermeable glove, leather glove with wool inserts, impermeable glove with wool inserts, and impermeable glove with built-in insulation. Each subject performed the tests under each handwear condition for 14 days at 35F ambient temperature and this comprised the Dry Glove Investigation. An additional Wet Glove Investigation involved the same tests and handwear conditions and was of four days' duration. For the remaining tests, the bare hand condition resulted in superior performance and the impermeable gloves with built-in insulation resulted in inferior performance compared to the other handwear conditions. Performance level on all tasks decreased on the first day of water immersion, but performance on the Minnesota Two-Hand Turning Test only was adversely affected on both water immersion days.