Something seems fishy. There is no way human temperature perception is sensitive to a precision of one degree such as would be necessary to distinguish between 14 and 15 degree ice water and provoke such significant psychological reactions. Physical temperature measurement gets very noisy at that degree of granularity, and even inference…
Something seems fishy. There is no way human temperature perception is sensitive to a precision of one degree such as would be necessary to distinguish between 14 and 15 degree ice water and provoke such significant psychological reactions. Physical temperature measurement gets very noisy at that degree of granularity, and even inference from measuring the infrared requires assuming very strictly controlled standard conditions when one is claiming precision in the decimal places. Even good modern digital thermocouples are not all that great and have to be periodically recalibrated, and the really accurate and precise ones cost a fortune.
I agree. The prolonged exposure to cold water is much more likely a factor than the 1 degree celsius difference. And TONS of evidence of people getting endorphine rushes from icebathing.
IF Kahneman is using CELSIUS: (a) 15 degrees isn't QUITE ice water; and (b) a one-degree difference is twice as great in C as in F (STILL rather slight, I'd say).
That's the best I can do. 15 degrees in F is ICE, unless I'm mistaken. BRRRRR!
It was in Celsius, so not 'icy' at all, and not particularly uncomfortable either, not atypical of the cold tap water with which one might wash one's hands. So, in the paper in Psychological Science, in Fahrenheit terms, they are claiming, "... In the long trial, they immersed the other hand at 57.2F for 60 seconds, then kept the hand in the water 30 seconds longer as the temperature of the water was gradually raised to 59. 0F, still painful but distinctly less so for most subjects."
Look, there is no such thing as gradually changing the temperature in a bowl of water with a warm-blooded person's hand in it with this mind of incredible precision and 'gradually' so over the course of only 30 seconds? With 1993 psychology lab tech? Please, come on. And the test subjects somehow - sensitively noticed- this tiny temperature difference, but were genuinely 'blind' weren't told about or didn't realize the sight warming being applied in the last 30 second, and so their responses were not influenced by such knowledge?
This place is called bet on it. Ok, I'm willing to bet right now this claim won't replicate.
I agree. Worse, it ignore the way heat disperses, or doesn't in this case, through water. After a minute there would be an envelope of warmer water around each person's hand raising the effective temperature perceived significantly. You get this same effect in a swimming pool, where if you hold still you feel a bit warmer but when you start moving it cools off; the pool overall is roughly the same temperature but the water right up against you is much warmer if you don't mix it with the rest.
I suspect the result of the hand in water experiment is much more due to the psychologists' lack of understanding of temperature dynamics than it is of the underlying psychological phenomenon.
Something seems fishy. There is no way human temperature perception is sensitive to a precision of one degree such as would be necessary to distinguish between 14 and 15 degree ice water and provoke such significant psychological reactions. Physical temperature measurement gets very noisy at that degree of granularity, and even inference from measuring the infrared requires assuming very strictly controlled standard conditions when one is claiming precision in the decimal places. Even good modern digital thermocouples are not all that great and have to be periodically recalibrated, and the really accurate and precise ones cost a fortune.
I agree. The prolonged exposure to cold water is much more likely a factor than the 1 degree celsius difference. And TONS of evidence of people getting endorphine rushes from icebathing.
IF Kahneman is using CELSIUS: (a) 15 degrees isn't QUITE ice water; and (b) a one-degree difference is twice as great in C as in F (STILL rather slight, I'd say).
That's the best I can do. 15 degrees in F is ICE, unless I'm mistaken. BRRRRR!
It was in Celsius, so not 'icy' at all, and not particularly uncomfortable either, not atypical of the cold tap water with which one might wash one's hands. So, in the paper in Psychological Science, in Fahrenheit terms, they are claiming, "... In the long trial, they immersed the other hand at 57.2F for 60 seconds, then kept the hand in the water 30 seconds longer as the temperature of the water was gradually raised to 59. 0F, still painful but distinctly less so for most subjects."
Look, there is no such thing as gradually changing the temperature in a bowl of water with a warm-blooded person's hand in it with this mind of incredible precision and 'gradually' so over the course of only 30 seconds? With 1993 psychology lab tech? Please, come on. And the test subjects somehow - sensitively noticed- this tiny temperature difference, but were genuinely 'blind' weren't told about or didn't realize the sight warming being applied in the last 30 second, and so their responses were not influenced by such knowledge?
This place is called bet on it. Ok, I'm willing to bet right now this claim won't replicate.
I agree. Worse, it ignore the way heat disperses, or doesn't in this case, through water. After a minute there would be an envelope of warmer water around each person's hand raising the effective temperature perceived significantly. You get this same effect in a swimming pool, where if you hold still you feel a bit warmer but when you start moving it cools off; the pool overall is roughly the same temperature but the water right up against you is much warmer if you don't mix it with the rest.
I suspect the result of the hand in water experiment is much more due to the psychologists' lack of understanding of temperature dynamics than it is of the underlying psychological phenomenon.