A REVIEW OF THE EFFECTS OF HIGH AMBIENT TEMPERATURE ON MENTAL PERFORMANCE

Abstract

Fifteen experiments done in various laboratories have assessed the effects of high thermal stress on mental performance. These experiments represent different combinations of exposure time and effective temperature. These studies were reviewed, and the upper thermal limit for unimpaired mental performance was found to vary systematically with exposure duration. Specifically, the lowest test temperatures yielding statistically-reliable decrements in mental performance decline exponentially as exposure durations are increased up to 4 hours. When this temperature-duration curve for mental performance is compared with physiological tolerance curves, it is found to lie well below them at every point in time.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 01, 1965
Accession Number
AD0624144

Entities

People

  • John F. Wing

Organizations

  • Air Force Research Laboratory

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • Human Systems
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Achievement Tests
  • Air Force
  • Analysis Of Variance
  • Behavioral Sciences
  • Biomedical Research
  • Classification
  • Climate Change
  • Combinatorial Analysis
  • Data Science
  • Environment
  • Experimental Design
  • High Temperature
  • Information Science
  • Instructions
  • Naval Personnel
  • Psychology
  • Statistical Analysis

Readers

  • Brain and Cognitive Science; Experimental Psychology; Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Thermal Physics or Thermal Science.