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Sensory Pleasure and Homeostasis
Published in Boon Lay Ong, Beyond Environmental Comfort, 2013
Alliesthesia is the faculty of a sensation to move up and down the hedonic axis of Figure 2.2. The word alliesthesia (Greek Aliosis – changed and esthesia – sensation) is applied to the hedonic component of sensation, pleasure, or displeasure. The amount of pleasure or displeasure aroused by a given stimulus is not invariable, it depends on the internal state of the stimulated subject and on information stored in memory. Factors that can modify the internal state and in turn induce alliesthesia are as follows: Internal physiological variables (e.g., deep body temperature or body dehydration modify the pleasure of thermal sensation or taste of water); set-points (e.g., during fever the body temperature set-point is raised and pleasure defends the elevated set-point); multiple peripheral stimuli (e.g., mean skin temperature determines the set-point for deep body temperature and in turn generates alliesthesia); and past history of the subject (e.g., association of a flavor with a disease or a recovery from disease renders it unpleasant or pleasant). Positive alliesthesia indicates a change to a more pleasurable sensation, negative alliesthesia a change to a less pleasurable one. For example, the taste of a candy is pleasant if I am hungry; if I eat ten candies in a row, the eleventh may arouse displeasure: Negative alliesthesia took place with this sweet sensation (e.g., Figure 2.3). If I try again to eat a candy a couple of hours later, now I may feel pleasure: Positive alliesthesia occurred since the last ingestion. This will be described and studied more systematically in the following pages.
Natural Ventilation and Thermal Comfort
Published in Ulrike Passe, Francine Battaglia, Designing Spaces for Natural Ventilation, 2015
Ulrike Passe, Francine Battaglia
There is no agreement in thermal comfort research about the need for, usefulness of, or even desire for increased air movement inside indoor environments. While the mechanical ventilation industry aims at minimizing perceived air movement inside a fully conditioned building, natural ventilation of course requires perceivable air velocity. In addition, the tolerance for higher temperatures increases with air movement. Richard de Dear29 goes as far as to question the whole notion of thermal comfort as a neutral case. He and his research team ask why we should aim for thermal neutrality inside a building when we could pursue thermal pleasure or alliesthesia, as he names it. The third and most recent shift proposes a new approach to indoor environmental quality, going beyond thermal comfort and reaching for thermal pleasure. Thermal comfort is defined as the state of mind that expresses satisfaction with the surrounding environment (ASHRAE standard 55–2010). The emergent application of thermal alliesthesia to the thermal comfort explored by de Dear (2010) investigates situations in which a peripheral thermal sensation can assume either positive or negative hedonic tone, depending on the state of core temperature in relation to its thermo-neutral set-point.29The concept of alliesthesia coined by Cabanac (1971) implies the presence of internal signals modifying the conscious sensations aroused from peripheral receptors. For instance accelerations in air speed on skin surface trigger dynamic discharges from the skin’s cold thermoreceptors. So, in the warm adaptive comfort zone these turbulence-induced dynamic discharges from exposed skin’s cold thermoreceptors elicit small bursts of positive alliesthesia.29
Flourishing workplaces: a multisensory approach to design and POE
Published in Intelligent Buildings International, 2019
Derek Clements-Croome, Briony Turner, Kay Pallaris
The word ‘comfort’ is perhaps overused. It has a neutral but long term durable quality. It is usually seen as a pleasant or relaxed state of a human being in relation to their environment but surely that is only part of what we need for the concentrating mind. Is one highly attentive when comfortable or is there a danger of being bored, losing attention or even falling asleep? Cabanac (2006) writes about pleasure and joy and their role in human life, and indicates how transients are important in providing variety and contrast for the human sensory system to respond to. During the day we hope for and seek joyful moments perhaps a tree in blossom, pleasant air movement or changing light patterns. There is an echo of this in Maslow’s book Religions, Values and Peak Experiences in 1964 when he writes about peak experiences which can be transitory, momentary or longer term but trigger happiness and uplift in mood. Cabanac introduced the term alliesthesia which means a stimulus may give rise to a pleasant or unpleasant sensation depending on the internal state of the person (De Dear 2011). Our experience of the environment is the result of an interplay of heat, light, sound and many other factors. Buildings should provide a multi-sensory experience. The senses need stimulation to react to otherwise boredom sets in.