Relevance of thermal comfort in location to the whole body in terms of cortisol and salivary α-amylase

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The aim of this study is to discuss experimentally relevance of thermal comfort in location to the whole body in terms of cortisol and α-amylase activity in saliva. Sixteen young Japanese female subjects participated in the experiments. As for the target locations, three body regions of trunk, arms, and thighs were selected all with almost identical body surface area of about 17 %. The relation of the local thermal comfort limit with the local skin wettednesses differed depending upon the individual location. The comfort limit in the arms and the thighs were 0.16±0.08 and 0.17±0.10, respectively. On the other hand, the comfort limit in the trunk was 0.28±0.16, which was found to be significantly larger than those of limbs. It was observed that thermal discomfort in the whole body wasn't induced if its skin wettedness stayed within 0.22±0.10, even if the local skin wettedness indicated much higher value than the local comfort limit. Cortisol in saliva did not reflect thermal comfort sensation in the whole body, while amylase activity did. The salivary amylase activity remarkably increased with decreasing thermal comfort when the whole body felt slightly discomfort.