Cold Suggestion to Cope with the Negative Impact of Tropical Climate

The thermal discomfort experienced in a tropical environment has negative effects on human performance. Cooling techniques before, during, or immediately after exercise have been extensively reported on in the physiological literature, but psychological techniques for subjective cooling have rarely been explored. The purpose of this experiment was to evaluate whether a cold suggestion would have an effect on environmental perceptions and affect in a tropical climate. Fifty participants were assigned in random order to two experimental sessions in similar hot and humid conditions at a 1 -week interval (30[degrees]C [+ or -] 1.2; 87% rH [+ or -] 2): one with a suggestion focused on cold and the other a control session. The main results indicated that the suggestion focused on cold significantly decreased thermal discomfort and perceived heat and reduced the degradation on the Feeling Scale. The cold suggestion used as a per-cooling technique to cope with the negative impact of a tropical climate is discussed. KEYWORDS: tropical environment, cold suggestion, mental strategy, thermal comfort, affect
'Que frio barbaro hace' se dijo Oliveira que creia en la eficacia de la autosugestion' (Cortazar, 1963, p. 256). As early as 1963, Argentinean writer Julio Cortazar referred to autosuggestion [...]