Mammalian Perception
Mammals have an endothermic ("warm-blooded") physiology. Therefore they have a perception of thermal comfort that is centered around their body temperature. Their thermal comfort is dependent upon their metabolism and environmental surroundings, and is affected by heat conduction, convection, radiation, and evaporative heat loss. Thermal comfort is maintained when the heat generated by their metabolism is allowed to dissipate, thus maintaining thermal equilibrium with the surroundings. When this equilibrium is not maintained due to excessive heat loss, then they will perceive the feeling of being too cold, and in varying degrees of discomfort depending upon how far this equilibrium is skewed.
Read more about this topic: Cold
Famous quotes containing the words mammalian and/or perception:
“Specialization is a feature of every complex organization, be it social or natural, a school system, garden, book, or mammalian body.”
—Catharine R. Stimpson (b. 1936)
“The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.”
—John Stuart Mill (1806–1873)