Quarantine is one of the effective approaches to control the spread of COVID-19. However, prolonged isolation may harm the health of residents, especially students, who are quarantined in dormitories. This study surveyed students’ behaviors, living environment, and psychological state through an online questionnaire. The results showed that during the isolation period, the participants’ discomfort mainly came from high temperatures, high humidity, loud sounds, and dark lighting. Moreover, about half of the students experienced severe anxiety or depression, with poor sleep and an unclear mind being the most common problems. Additionally, this study focused on exploring the correlations between environmental perceptions and the psychological state of isolated students, that were identified to be significant. Furthermore, as isolation time was prolonged, the psychological state of isolated students worsened, and the most significant factor changed from thermal sensations to acoustic sensations. Interestingly, the psychological state of males was worse than females, and they were more easily affected by their thermal and acoustic environments. Therefore, keeping the environment comfortable has a positive influence on maintaining the good psychological condition of people in isolation. This study can provide suggestions for the improvement of indoor environments and for the mental health of people in isolation and in other similar situations.

The thermal perception of different body parts can vary greatly throughout the human body and have different influences on overall thermal sensation and comfort. Various personal comfort systems (PCS) have been developed to stimulate local body parts for the purpose of enhancing human thermal comfort, yet the most effective body parts for intervention remain undetermined. Therefore, a series of climate chamber experiments under five uniform environments with three sets of suits were conducted in this study. The results showed that the head, chest, belly, and hands tended to feel no cooler than overall in cooler environments, but arms and legs felt generally no warmer than overall in warmer environments. The head, trunk and upper arms were more likely to be the comfort-dominant body parts. Additionally, the upper arms and upper back expected temperature regulation measures the most under non-neutral environments, thus they seem to be the two most needed and effective targeted body parts that a PCS could be applied to. The skin temperature and thermal sensation of limbs were more sensitive to indoor air temperatures than those of the torso. However, variations in the skin temperature of the head, chest, upper back, and calves had the strongest correlation with overall sensation vote changes. The above results and conclusions can not only serve as the basis for the future studies of local thermal comfort, but also provide theoretical guidance for the design of future PCS products.