Local wearable cooling may improve thermal comfort, emotion, and cognition

The objective of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of a local wearable cooling solution in improving thermal comfort, emotional state, and cognitive performance. The study was conducted in an environmental room with air temperature of 31.5 ± 0.26 °C. Thirty participants performed six cognitive tasks while periodically assessing their thermal experience locally where the cooling (Embr wave) was applied and for the whole body, as well as emotional states. The same protocol was applied to another thirty participants as the control group without local cooling. We also measured mean skin temperature and local skin temperature beneath the cooling device during the whole session. The results showed a significant drop in thermal sensation right after the application of the local cooling. Based on the ASHRAE 7-point scale for the overall thermal sensation vote, the local sensation dropped from 0.8 to −0.4 and the whole-body thermal sensation from 1.34 to 0.87. Over the 60 min of local cooling application, the local thermal sensation dropped from 0.98 to 0.04 and the whole-body thermal sensation dropped from 1.37 to 1.12. Furthermore, the local cooling group showed a significant drop in negative emotions and an increase in positive emotions compared to the control group. For cognitive performance, local cooling groups showed to be more inclined for risk taking for more rewards compared to the control group. The performance of other cognitive tests showed no significant difference between the two groups, even though attention, working memory and creativity were enhanced slightly but insignificantly.