Human responses to various conditions of water temperature

Skin-surface temperatures on thehuman hand were obtained immediately following six exposure times ranging from 5 to 60 sec. for water temperatures varying in 5° increments from 10° to 40°C. The surface of the skin was found to respond rapidly and regularly to both the temperature and time of exposure. In a second study 30 Ss exposed a hand for 5 or 30 sec. to water temperatures ranging from 10° to 45°C. and made ratings on scales of pain and comfort as well as attaching a verbal label (cold, cool, tepid, etc.) to each experience. The experience of cold became more intense over these time intervals while the experience of warmth became less, and with the threshold constant taken into account the sensations of pain and discomfort were found to follow a psychophysical power law. The usefulness of these sorts of data for interpreting the effects of noxious stimuli in basic learning studies is discussed.