Effects of the distribution of skin surface temperature were investigated on thermal insulation of clothing for whole and each body part. The experiments were carried out with a thermal manikin in a climatic chamber. The two types of clothing ensemble were measured. The measurement with nude thermal manikin were also conducted. The three variations of skin temperature distribution were set with the thermal manikin. The values of the thermal insulation of nude skin surface (Ia), the total thermal insulation of clothing (It) and the basic thermal insulation of clothing (Icl) were measured with this thermal manikin under each skin temperature distribution. As a result, the values of Ia and It were not affected by skin temperature distributions of the range of typical experimental conditions. However, It is necessary to carefully use the values of the thermal insulation of clothing for the body parts, because these values were more influenced by the skin temperature distribution than those for the whole body.

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The improved thermal dolorimeter developed by Fukumoto has made it easy to measure thermal pain thresholds, but mechanical stimulations may be included as the probe is pressed into the skin. In order to evaluate these effects of mechanical stimulation on the improved thermal dolorimeter, the pain threshold temperatures were measured by a probe pressed to the human skin surface with weighting loads from 0.5 to 2.5 kgf. The loads of 2.0-2.5 kgf felt invasive to 8 of the 12 subjects, i.e., they experienced pain and numbness. The threshold temperature of one of these subjects, who developed water blisters around load-added area on the skin after the experiments, exceeded 50°C. The result that no significant difference could be found among the thresholds at the loads of over 2.0 kgf suggests the load of less than 2.0 kgf should be kept to execute proper experiments. In order to investigate other effects on thermal property by compressing, the blood flow was measured when the skin was compressed and three dimensional heat transfer simulations were conducted. The results of the simulations demonstrated that the temperatures of the heat source which were measurable in practice differed approximately 1 to 2°C from the true thresholds. The velocity of heating is also increased and subjects will be given stronger feelings of heating.

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In order to investigate the physical, economical, physiological and psychological aspects regarding ancient lighting, two series of experiment were performed. At first a darkroom (1.3 × 4.5 m, Ht: 2.7 m) was constructed. In experiment I, illuminance and consumption rate of fuel were measured. The Japanese classic candle, plant oil and animal fat yield 1.12, 0.30-0.62 and 0.05 lux at 1.0 m distance, respectively. The illuminance was reduced to about 50% by andon which was a lighting tool of folkcraft. The burning duration of plant oil was about two weeks to 180 ml when it burned 4 hours per one day. In experiment II, 15 young females were examined regarding the visual properties such as visual acuity, readability of newspaper and discrimination of color under the simulated illumination of candle. The visual acuity was 0.42 under 0.16 lux. It needed more than 1.44 lux to read a newspaper. In the color discrimination test, yellowish green was most difficult, silver or long wave range colors were easy.

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The usability of four kinds of keyboards as regards touch and feel was evaluated by measuring the performance and eliciting the preferences of a total of 24 Japanese participants in a test that consisted of typing English text. It was found that quiet keyboards with an indistinct tactile feedback tend to give higher uncorrected error rates than keyboards with a distinct tactile feedback and clicking sound, while no significant difference in throughput was found among the four keyboards. As regards preference, the test participants were divided into two groups: those who preferred keyboards with a distinct tactile feedback and clicking sound, and those who preferred keyboards with an indistinct tactile feedback and no sound. Analysis revealed that these two groups also showed different sensations and preferences with respect to several aspects of the touch and feel of keyboards. This result suggests that suppliers of computer keyboards should provide two kinds of keyboards, with distinct and indistinct tactile key switches, in order to satisfy as many users as possible.

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