Temperature can affect cognitive thinking?

Students, have you ever felt that you perform better in school during the colder days of the year? Research shows that people make better decision-making skills and perform better cognitively in cooler environments compared to hotter environments. This may sound silly and weird, but our brain (which is what we use to think with) is an organ and it needs certain things to work most efficiently. Brains need energy to function properly and it uses glucose as an energy source.

An important task of the body is temperature regulation. Peoples’ bodies use energy to maintain a healthy internal temperature. This is achieved through sweating, shivering, and getting goose bumps.

Warm temperatures are more likely to deplete peoples’ resources for energy. It is proposed that because our bodies need to use more glucose in warmer areas to function properly, brains cannot function to their full capacity due to lack of glucose for cognitive functioning.

Two researchers form UVA wanted to test this theory out. They gathered sales data for multiple types of lottery games in St. Louis County for a year and then examined the differences in sales in relation to the temperature each day. Sales for scratch tickets fell by almost $600 with every one degree Fahrenheit increase in temperature. They then made two experiments. In one lab study, participants were asked to proofread an article while they were in either a warm or cool room. Participants that were in warm rooms performed significantly worse than those in cool rooms. In a second study, participants were asked to choose between two cell phone plans in either a warm or cool room. One plan looked better, but was actually more expensive and the wrong choice. This task was harder than the first experiment, but it still showed the ability of whether people can or cannot make good cognitive decisions in hotter areas compared to cooler areas. Participants in the cool room made the correct decision more than half of the time. Participants in the warmer room made the correct decision only a quarter of the time.

Warmer temperatures seem to make people more likely to rely on easy patterns of decision-making, which in turn lead to inferior choices and more decisions. While there it could have been chance that the smarter people were put in a cooler room, this is doubtful because two experiments give evidence and support that people do perform worse cognitively in warmer areas. I have one question concerning the experiment. If glucose is needed for cognitive thinking, then what people ate before the study is important for accurate results. This is a third variable that needs to be taken into account.

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http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/warm-weather-makes-it-hard-think-straight/

4 thoughts on “Temperature can affect cognitive thinking?

  1. Alex Victor Hatala

    These findings are very “cool” (Did you see what I did there?), and also pretty interesting considering we all go to Penn State, which is often a cold place, and these studies describe how people perform better cognitively when they are in a colder environment. It makes you wonder if the students and faculty would not be as successful if Penn State was located in a warmer area. However, you do bring up a good point that there are any confounding variables that could have occurred such as what foods did the subjects eat before. There are numerous things that effect cognitive ability, and here are some foods that give your brain a boost. There are so many possible confounding variables, even things like how much sunlight one is exposed to. I am interested to see if these findings about temperature are true, or if they are only due to chance because of confounding variables.

  2. Corey Michael Lapenna

    I loved how you were able to address the third variable as we have al learned from class that they can truly be a game changer. I have to agree with Caitlin as I personally feel more comfortable studying and doing work in a warmer climate. Yet the study in which you showed was caught me off guard as the way in which the observational study portrayed the cognitive thinking increase in colder temperature. The cold temperature I can see in a way that it keeps the person awake and alert yet while in warmer temperature the student may in fact be more comfortable yet they could in fact become less attentive, speaking from personal opinion.

  3. Caitlin Marie Gailey

    I was surprised by these results. Personally I find that I am much more productive in a warmer environment rather then when I am cold. I feel more comfortable when I am warmer and my comfort level allows me to work better. I think this study works in conjunction to what my high school believed. They frequently kept the building colder, not only citing the cost but also that the colder temperatures kept students more alert and therefore more focused. I never found this to be the case and always felt awkward and uncomfortable, more focused on the temperature than work at hand. However I do understand that the feeling of comfort educed by the warmth could lead subjects to perpetuate early patterns of decision making which could not be good. Considering how the studies were conducted I am currently not convinced either way.

  4. Katelyn May Schreckengast

    Great blog post! I like how you take the third confounding variables into account. The study seems pretty solid, but I agree with your last question.

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