Abstract
Studies of thermal sensation in man commonly use a 7 point category scale. Such scales have disadvantages, and an experiment was carried out to apply the methods of the new psychophysics to whole body thermal sensation. Ten sedentary subjects were exposed singly to a temperature To near their comfort level, then to (To + 3) and (To −3)°C. The subject responded both by giving a warmth vote, and by gripping a dynamometer so that the strength of his grip was equal to his thermal sensation: this is the method of cross modality matching. For each subject the strength of grip was consistently related to thermal sensation vote, but the range of grips employed by different subjects was very high, making between subjects comparison impossible. The experiment was repeated with the subjects unclothed and heavily clothed. No effect of clothing was found on the rate of change of thermal sensation with temperature; conventional theories which relate sensation to heat load would predict a factor of 2.
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