Asymmetric cooling and heating perception

Abstract

A series of experiments have been conducted to evaluate human thermal response to asymmetric thermal stimulation. It has been validated in previous studies that asymmetric thermal stimuli can create perceptions of heating or cooling while maintaining a constant average temperature applied to the skin. In this study we implemented three experimental procedures on the ventral forearm to evaluate asymmetric thermal stimulation. These experiments also examined several ways to collect perceptual thermal responses from subjects. Constant and asymmetric thermal pattern average temperatures were adjusted based on multiple aspects of thermal perception theories. Temporally optimized thermal patterns were implemented and resulted in counter-intuitive thermal perceptions. These results also demonstrated that the perceptual neutral point differs from the thermally neutral point on the skin.