Studies on color preferences are dependent on the topic and the relationships with personal characteristics, particularly personality, but these are seldom studied in one population. Therefore a questionnaire was collected from 1095 Dutch people asking for color preferences about different topics and relating them to personal characteristics. Color preferences regarding different topics show different patterns and significant differences were found between gender, age, education and personality such as being technical, being emotional or being a team player. Also, different colors were mentioned when asked for colors that stimulate to be quiet, energetic, and able to focus or creative. Probably, due to unconsciousness of contexts, many people had no color preference, a result that in the literature seldom is mentioned. Blue was the overall favorite color; however, most males chose for blue (25%) while most females had no color preference (18%). Black was the overall favorite color for clothing, mainly chosen by females (40%), while males primarily chose blue (27%). For building interiors subjects preferred white. For moods, subjects preferred white for being quiet or being able to focus, red for being energetic and had no color preference for being creative. It is concluded that color preferences are dependent upon the topic, and personal characteristics. The findings are important for architects, interior designers, fashion designers and product designers to have a basic idea of preferred colors for different objects by different types of people. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 40, 62–71, 2015

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Awareness of the external environment, paired with pre-experience and expectation, influences comfort for people over time. Fostering and encouraging a holistic approach to comfort utilizing eastern and western concepts and ergonomic principles creates a sense of "placeness" and balance in the design for comfort in built environments. This is new research information on the influences of the comfort experience over time, to include pre-experience, expectations and the placement of elements in the external environment.

A review of literature on comfort and discomfort indicates an increase in physical discomfort during the workday. In this paper, three different types of occupations were studied to identify whether a similar discomfort pattern exists in these occupations while participants perform work throughout the work day and workweek. Results are that sedentary and labor intensive occupations show an increase in physical discomfort throughout the workday. In addition, during the workweek, each occupation had a peak discomfort day and all occupations experienced a reduction of discomfort at the end of the last day of the workweek. Acknowledging and understanding why, when, and where discomfort peaks occur could assist in varying task scheduling to improve job performance. Future research should include emotional and psychological discomfort assessments, investigation of effects of age, time of year, and location in the world are warranted.

Abstract. Within this special issue, different aspects of the environment are studied: aspects that are distant from the human body, close to the body and touching the human body. Consequently, different human senses are involved in these studies as well as the different consequences and effects on the brain and human behaviour. This special issue also highlights many remaining questions about the effects and relationships between environments and human beings and the need for more studies and research. In particular, future studies are needed that address long-term effects and the effects of the combinations of elements which provide comfort or discomfort.Keywords: Comfort, discomfort, transportation, office design, expectations The influence of the environment on the human in a modelAccording to the Environmental Design Technical Group (EDTG) of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society [1], "Environmental design is the discipline concerned with the relationship between human behavior and the designed environment". This special issue of WORK consists of 21 papers concerned with research in the area of environmental design. These papers studied environment and many designed environments for improvement of performance, well-being, comfort or experience * Address for correspondence: Conne Bazley, 5966 County- of humans in contact with the environment. The relationship with the human and the environment is schematically shown in Fig. 1. The scheme shows the environment, the human sensor noticing the environment, the brain processing the input, and the behavior. The process may commence as follows: the human brain decides to focus on a sense organ. These sense organs record a signal, which is processed by the brain. During this processing between the senses and the brain, experiences and the human state play a role. The human state can be excited or relaxed, which influences the way the input is processed. This process has an influence on the behavior of the human being. Time is an important factor. Sometimes the process starts with seeing the environment, which leads to the brain taking an action. Sometimes the brain activates sensors searching for an object such as an exit door. Time is also of importance as usually this action fits into a 'customer 1051-9815/16/$35.00