Thermal comfort of autistic people with and without a view out

• The thermal perception of an autistic and a control group was compared in living labs. • Autistic participants felt more uncomfortable at non-neutral conditions. • Autistic participants perceived more thermal discomfort at the extremities. • A natural view out mitigated the discomfort of autistic participants. • Measured physiological parameters did not explain the different perceptions. Autism is associated with different sensitivity to sensorial stimuli, possibly influencing the indoor environmental perception. In this study, we investigated the thermal perception of autistic people under different thermal and visual conditions and compared their responses with those from a non-autistic control group. In office-like living labs and during the winter season, we exposed the participants to three thermal scenes ( slightly cold, neutral and slightly warm ), with and without access to a view out. During each session, we collected thermal responses by means of questionnaires, with simultaneous environmental and physiological measurements. The thermal and visual environments affected the autistic participants differently, when compared with the controls. Even though the two groups were both feeling neutral under neutral conditions, colder and warmer conditions were perceived as more uncomfortable by the autistic group with no view out. Average TSV values of -1.71 and 1.53 were found for the autistic participants. In comparison, the average TSV of the controls were -0.85 and 0.90 under the same conditions. Additionally, more autistic participants than controls indicated cold/warm at the extremities (legs/feet, arm/hands, head) as sources of local discomfort. The difference in TSV between the two groups became statistically insignificant when there was a view to the natural outdoor scenery. Also, local discomfort of the ASC group was mitigated. The responses were not significantly correlated with the heart rate or skin temperature. Our results demonstrate that individual differences in sensitivity can lead to a need for different requirements in terms of IEQ.