Interindividual differences of male college students in thermal preference in winter

The purpose of the paper is to investigate the difference in thermal preferences and their effect on physiological response and thermal sensation. A questionnaire combined with reliability analysis was proposed to divide participants into the following groups: cool preference, neutral preference, and warm preference. Then, 18 participants with different thermal preferences (6 for each thermal preference) were selected from 180 university students based on the proposed questionnaire. Finally, the 18 participants performed human trials in three environments (21 °C, 19 °C, and 17 °C) wherein physiological parameters (core temperature, heart rate, skin temperature, and conductive heat flux), as well as thermal sensation and thermal comfort, were recorded during tests. The results demonstrated that the proposed questionnaire can be used to evaluate thermal preferences. Furthermore, thermal preferences significantly (p