PEBL Hub — IRB Fact Sheet — 2026-08-23

Visual Analog Scales (Comfort & Exertion)

Category:Personality & Rating Scales

Duration:~3 minutes

Parameters:Six boolean parameters (one per scale) control which scales are administered: docomfort, dohotcold, dowetdry, dotemp, doRPE, doRSME. All enabled by default.

Version:1.0

Description

A collection of six Visual Analog Scales (VAS) for measuring comfort, temperature sensation, Mental Exertion (RSME) and physical exertion (Borg's RPE)

This test battery includes six independent Visual Analog Scales that can be individually enabled or disabled via parameters. Each scale uses continuous visual analog response with labeled anchor points. The six scales are: **1. Comfort Scale (11-point)**: Overall comfort/discomfort level ranging from 'Greatest Imaginable Discomfort' through neutral to 'Greatest Imaginable Comfort'. Based on standard VAS methodology (Aitken, 1969). **2. Hot/Cold Scale (9-point)**: Thermal sensation scale ranging from 'Very Cold' through 'Neutral' to 'Very Hot'. Standard thermal comfort assessment scale. **3. Wet/Dry Scale (3-point)**: Skin moisture sensation ranging from 'Very Dry' through 'Neutral/Normal' to 'Soaking/Dripping Wet'. **4. Temperature Change Preference (3-point)**: Preference for room temperature adjustment: 'Cooler', 'No Change', or 'Warmer'. **5. Borg RPE Scale (6-20)**: Rating of Perceived Exertion for physical effort. The classic Borg scale with anchors at 6 (No exertion), 9 (Extremely light), 11 (Very light), 13 (Light), 15 (Somewhat hard), 17 (Hard/Heavy), 19 (Very hard), and 20 (Maximal exertion). Includes explanatory text for each level. **6. RSME Scale**: Rating of Subjective Mental Effort (Zijlstra & van Doorn, 1985). Continuous visual analog scale with 9 verbal anchors ranging from 'Absolutely no effort' to 'Extreme effort'. Participants click on the visual analog line to indicate their response. Each scale includes a 'Continue' button to advance. All responses are saved to a single CSV file with timestamp and raw scale values.

Device requirements: Desktop, tablet, or mobile device with mouse/touch input

Key Parameters

docomfort	Comfort Scale: Overall comfort/discomfort level (default: 1)
dohotcold	Hot/Cold Scale: Temperature sensation (very cold to very hot) (default: 1)
dowetdry	Wet/Dry Scale: Skin moisture sensation (default: 1)
dotemp	Temperature Change Scale: Preference for room temperature (default: 1)
doRPE	Borg RPE Scale: Rating of Perceived Exertion (physical effort) (default: 1)
doRSME	RSME Scale: Rating of Subjective Mental Effort (default: 1)

Scoring & Interpretation

All scales return normalized values (0-1 continuous). For Borg RPE, multiply by 14 and add 6 to get traditional 6-20 score. All other scales can be interpreted directly as proportions of the scale range. 'NA' indicates scale was disabled via parameters.

Thermal comfort research
Environmental psychology studies
Exercise physiology and sports science
Human factors and ergonomics research
Workload assessment (physical and mental)
Pre/post intervention comfort measurement
Climate control and HVAC studies
Repeated measures of exertion during tasks

Validation

The component scales are well-established: Borg RPE is extensively validated in exercise science; RSME is validated for mental effort assessment; thermal comfort scales follow standard methodology.

Example Data Output (1 sample rows)

subnum	timestamp	time	comfort	hotcold	wetdry	temp	borgrpe	rsme
111	Sun Nov 2 22:12:10 2025	30.328	31.4286	0.937143	1.54286	4.31143	7	43.1538

References

Aitken, R. C. (1969). Measurement of feelings using visual analogue scales. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 62, 89-93.

Borg, G. A. (1982). Psychophysical bases of perceived exertion. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 14(5), 377-381.

Borg, G. (1970). Perceived exertion as an indicator of somatic stress. Scandinavian Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine, 2(2), 92-98.

Zijlstra, F., & van Doorn, L. (1985). The construction of a scale to measure subjective effort. Technical Report, Delft University of Technology.

Mueller, S.T., Tan, Y.Y., Flint, I. (2019). Development and Evaluation of a Model of Human Comfort and Cognitive Ability for Moderate Differences in Thermal Environment. In: Stephanidis, C. (eds) HCI International 2019 – Late Breaking Papers. HCII 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 11786. Springer, Cham.