Comparative Analysis of Thermal and Visual Comfort, and Users’ Adaptive Behaviours across Activity Intensities in Immersive Virtual and Real-World Environments

This thesis examines to what extent do thermal comfort and behavioural responses experienced in virtual settings accurately reflect those in real environments, particularly for varying activity intensity levels. It adopts an innovative experimental platform, namely the Immersive Virtual Environment (IVE), to explore multisensory integration (combining thermal and visual stimuli) for users during sedentary and high-intensity activities in a controlled climate chamber. The insights have practical implications for building and facility managers in designing and controlling indoor environments based on users’ activity levels. The outcomes of the study highlight the potential of VR as an effective tool for observing thermal comfort and behavioural responses across activity intensity levels.