Author(s):
Emília Quelhas Da Costa 
; João Santos Baptista ; Miguel Tato Diogo
Date: 2012
Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10216/65170
Origin: Repositório Aberto da Universidade do Porto
Subject(s): Ciências Tecnológicas; Tecnologia; Tecnologia da segurança
Description
The study about the influence of the thermal environment on cognitive response is fundamental to understanding better
the connection between the basic variables and cognitive performance. This also helps the better understanding of safety
situation, guidance and decision-making, especially to avoid critical situations. The main objective of this work is to
relate the physiological with cognitive response, trying to find exposure limits covering both occupational settings and
social environments in high temperatures. For this purpose, was used a systematic cross-linked search, relating several
key words and search phrases in different electronic data bases with different criteria. According to the survey results, it`s
clear the importance of studying the core temperature and the sweating rate to understand the relationship between the
thermal environment and the cognitive response So, in this review, different topics are considered by different authors as
fundamental for the study of thermal environment influence on cognitive response as: type of tasks, dehydration, brain,
skin and core and temperature. It was concluded in relation to sedentary activities that the results are still questionable.
However, this brief survey indicates that the cognitive response is affected by, at least, four parameters, core temperature,
dehydration, psychological factors and the type of the tasks.
