Abstract
The comfort requirements of occupants influence indoor-environmental factors and energy performance of buildings. Occupants are typically exposed to a multitude of indoor-environmental factors, including a variety of different thermal, auditory, visual, and air quality conditions. However, the bulk of past research and derivative indoor-environmental codes and standards concerning the comfort of occupants address the multiple indoor-environmental stimuli in isolation. Starting from a brief review of past research on multi-perceptual indoor-environmental assessments of occupants, the present study pursues an experimental approach to explore the potential cross-modal effects on the evaluation of indoor-environmental thermal, visual, and acoustic aspects. In this context, a laboratory space including two adjacent identical mock-up office rooms was used to conduct multi-aspect parametric studies with human participants. Different thermal, visual, and auditory conditions were maintained in these two units. In the course of the present study, 296 participants were exposed, on a short-term basis, to different combinations of thermal, visual, and auditory conditions. The experiments were intended to explore if the evaluation of one aspect of the indoor environment could be influenced by differences in the values pertaining to the other aspects. The experimental results are presented and discussed, including their limitations.
Highlights
IntroductionTypical indoor environments, such as office settings, are multi-dimensional and include a multitude of indoorenvironmental factors (e.g., thermal, auditory, visual, and air quality conditions)
Motivation and BackgroundBuilding standards and guidelines regarding human comfort commonly address indoorenvironmental requirements in isolation (Mahdavi et al, 2020a)
The thermal, visual, and acoustic sensation and comfort votes were obtained from 296 participants
Summary
Typical indoor environments, such as office settings, are multi-dimensional and include a multitude of indoorenvironmental factors (e.g., thermal, auditory, visual, and air quality conditions). In this context, single-aspect and several multi-aspect research efforts have been conducted to better understand indoor-environmental exposure situations (Torresin et al, 2018; Schweiker et al, 2020). The more widely conducted single-aspect research efforts study the influence of one indoorenvironmental aspect at a time, including the perception of occupants on thermal, visual, auditory, Cross-Modal Evaluation of Indoor Environment or air quality circumstances (see e.g., Edwards and Torcellini, 2006; Galasiu and Veitch, 2006; Wu and Mahdavi, 2014; Vardaxis et al, 2018). Fewer studies included other combinations of indoor-environmental conditions, such as visual and air quality circumstances (Newsham et al, 2009) or thermal and acoustic conditions (Nagano and Horikoshi, 2005; Tiller et al, 2010)
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