A group of psychologists from Israel and the United States have found that actual experiences and associations associated with cold increase self-control when performing cognitive tasks.
Numerous studies in recent years show that cognition is closely related to sensorimotor experiences. In addition, Jean Piaget's classical theory of the development of intelligence suggests that feelings and physical activity are at the core of a child's cognitive functions. Less explored, however, is how different physiological conditions affect the psyche of an adult. For example, according to past work, thirst can reduce motivation, while heat, including associated images, can increase aggressiveness. Thus, even changes in ambient temperature can disrupt self-control, so scientists are looking for patterns associated with such risk factors.
In a new article, researchers at Stanford University and Ben-Gurion University have explored how the actual and imaginative cold experience affects self-control. To do this, the authors conducted two experiments with 115 students. In the first stage, 87 volunteers had to press buttons as quickly as possible, which corresponded to the direction of the arrows on the monitor. The appearance of each arrow was preceded by an image of a colored square on the opposite side of the screen, while after 166 milliseconds, the arrow was covered with a black square. To successfully complete the task, the participants had to follow the arrows and ignore the colored squares.
The proportion of incorrect answers when holding envelopes of different temperatures / Eliran Halali et al., Psychological Research, 2017
Then the students received an envelope with a therapy pillow heated to 37-40.5 degrees Celsius or cooled to 11.8-15.5 degrees Celsius in their non-dominant hand, and the experiment was repeated. During the test, the control group held an envelope with a pillow at room temperature (24-25 degrees Celsius). At the same time, according to legend, the purpose of the work was to find out the influence of a cognitive task on the commercial assessment of a product. The results showed that participants with a chilled pillow performed on average more accurately than those who held an envelope with a warm or room temperature pillow. At the same time, the heated object did not decrease the reaction time of the subjects.
An example of a working window that was used in the second experiment / Eliran Halali et al., Psychological Research, 2017
In the second experiment, 28 other students also performed antisaccades, but this time the test area was in front of one of three images: with an icy or snowy landscape, a warm season, or an area with an asphalt road where the weather was not obvious. After a series of training sessions, the volunteers were asked to visualize their presence in the background picture for 20 seconds and return to the task. According to the analysis of responses, the background with the "winter" landscape correlated with significantly higher response accuracy than the "warm" and neutral images. Cold associations also accelerated participants' reaction times.
According to the authors, the data obtained indicate that the lowered temperature of the environment, as well as the images of frost, are associated with an increase in self-control. Presumably, the effect can be explained by the fact that cold increases alertness and requires more cognitive tension in general, while heat relaxes the body and induces an appropriate attitude.
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The article was published in the journal Psychological Research.
Denis Strigun