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)
“Action from principle, the perception and the performance of right, changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything which was. It not only divides States and churches, it divides families; ay, it divides the individual, separating the diabolical in him from the divine.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)