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Nonthermal sensory input and altered human thermoregulation: effects of visual information depicting hot or cold environments

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Abstract

A recent study showed that thermoregulatory-like cardiovascular responses can be invoked simply by exposure to visual information, even though the thermal environments are neutral and unchanged. However, it was not clear how such responses affect actual human body temperature regulation. We investigated whether such visually invoked physiological responses can substantively affect human core body temperature in a thermally challenging cold environment. Participants comprised 13 graduate or undergraduate students viewing different video images containing hot, cold, or no scenery, while room temperature was gradually lowered from 28 to 16 °C over 80 min. Rectal temperature, mean skin temperature, core to skin temperature gradient, and oxygen consumption were measured during the experiment. Rectal temperature was significantly lower when hot video images were presented compared to when control video images were presented. Oxygen consumption was comparable among all video images, but core to skin temperature gradient was significantly lower when hot video images were presented. This result suggests that visual information, even in the absence of thermal energy, can affect human thermodynamics and core body temperature.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Ms. Satoko Kamiya for assisting the conduction of the experiment. This study was partly funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (grant no. 24657175).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Integrated Frontier Science, Kyushu University, 4-9-1 Shiobaru, Minami-ku, Fukuoka, Japan

    Jun’ya Takakura, Damee Choi & Yuka Egashira

  2. Department of Public Health, Nagasaki University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, 1-12-4 Sakamoto, Nagasaki, Japan

    Takayuki Nishimura

  3. Faculty of Design, Kyushu University, 4-9-1 Shiobaru, Minami-ku, Fukuoka, Japan

    Shigeki Watanuki

Authors
  1. Jun’ya Takakura
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  2. Takayuki Nishimura
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  3. Damee Choi
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  4. Yuka Egashira
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  5. Shigeki Watanuki
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Correspondence to Jun’ya Takakura.

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Takakura, J., Nishimura, T., Choi, D. et al. Nonthermal sensory input and altered human thermoregulation: effects of visual information depicting hot or cold environments. Int J Biometeorol 59, 1453–1460 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-015-0956-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-015-0956-3

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