Bundle Up! Feeling Cold is Contagious

Do you feel cold? Then you may be able to influence those around you. Scientists have discovered that just looking at someone shivering is enough to make us feel cold.

"Mimicking another person is believed to help us create an internal model of their physiological state which we can use to better understand their motivations and how they are feeling," said Neil Harrison, one of the researchers, in a news release.

In the case of this research, the scientists had volunteers watch eight videos of actors putting their hands in either visibly warm or cold water. At the same time, the temperature of their own hands were measured. Surprisingly, the participants' hands were significantly colder when watching the "cold" videos, but the "warm" videos didn't cause a change.

"Humans are profoundly social creatures and much of humans' success results from our ability to work together in complex communities-this would be hard to do if we were not able to rapidly empathize with each other and predict one another's thoughts, feelings and motivations," said Harrison.

The findings reveal that just by watching others experience cold temperatures, people can feel cold themselves. This shows a level of empathy that is common among humans. The scientists also have an explanation as to why the volunteers didn't feel warm during the "warm" videos.

"We think that this is probably because the warm videos were less potent-the only cues that the water was warm was steam at the beginning of the videos and the pink color of the actor's hand (whereas blocks of ice were clearly visible throughout the duration of the cold video)," said Harrison. "There is also some evidence to suggest that people may be more sensitive to others appearing cold than hot."

The findings are published in the journal PLOS One.

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