Investigation of Gender Differences in Sleeping Comfort at Different Environmental Temperatures

Abstract

The purpose of this investigation was to determine whether there is gender difference in sleep comfort of healthy individuals at various temperatures. During winter, sleep quality was examined under different indoor temperatures (17, 20 and 23°C) using questionnaires and electroencephalogram (EEG). To explore the mechanism responsible for gender differences in comfortable sleeping temperatures, mean skin temperature, finger temperature and finger blood flow were measured. The results showed that females would prefer a higher ambient temperature during sleep than the men. The mean skin temperature for females was higher than that of males, whereas finger skin temperature and finger blood flow were significantly lower in females than in males. Furthermore, skin temperature and finger blood flow were more sensitive to ambient temperature with females than in males. The gender differences in preferred sleeping temperature could therefore be related to these physiological characteristics. Both subjective evaluations and EEG found better sleep quality in males under the same temperatures compared to females. Skin temperature changes over the course of the night also demonstrated longer periods of deep sleep in males compared to females.

Hybrid deep-learning model to recognise emotional responses of users towards architectural design alternatives

“…Lan and Lian (2009), Lee, Choi, and Chun (2012), and Zhang et al (2017) utilised brain waves to observe and verify changes in the productivity of occupants depending on the indoor temperature. Pan, Lian, and Lan (2011), Lan et al (2013), and Lan, Lian, and Lin (2016) utilised EEG for obtaining quantitative data, using which they analysed the dependence of the sleep patterns and satisfaction of subjects on the spatial environment. All such studies utilise brain waves for obtaining quantitative data, which are used to examine the physiological changes in occupants depending on the physical architectural conditions.…”

A review of human thermal comfort in the built environment

“…However, there is also research dealing with thermal comfort during sleep [22][23][24] and brief reviews about thermal comfort for sleeping environments are found in the literature [25,26]. Other studies have shown the relationship between indoor climate and the quality of sleep [27][28][29][30][31][32][33], stating that the optimal thermal conditions for a good night's sleep are different from ASHRAE 55 [27,28].…”

Definition of specific comfort parameters, indoor environmental and architectural quality: Evaluated by Danish single-family homeowners

“…The results showed that females prefer a higher temperature when sleeping than males and also that men in general have better sleep quality than women despite the temperature. The researchers believe this to be caused by physiological characteristics since the experiment furthermore showed differences between the genders finger and skin temperature and blood flow during the sleep [16]. This experiment first of all proves that there are differences in the temperature preferences of the genders but also that physiological differences can be causing these differences indicating that females and males in many cases will perceive indoor environment and comfort differently.…”

“…In most cases the respondents will mark one of the predefined replies instead of writing his own formulation although other replies might be more descriptive for him and his situation [21]. In the surveys about demographic influence [15,16,17] the demographic parameters clearly affect the results and the same is the case in the presented questionnaire survey. Despite the three surveys The three aspects which the average homeowners find essential for indoor environmental quality and the four most important comfort implications [ill.4+5], have proven to be the same for the majority of the homeowners when divided into groups defined by the eight demographic variables.…”

“…In case 1, the old windows are replaced by new and larger windows. ill. 16 The average evaluation of the architectural expression in the three proposals for window change.…”