ABSTRACT
Skin conductance lowers, as the small passageways to the skin out of which sweat comes close to minimize perspiration and the consequent loss of body heat. Peripheral vasoconstriction occurs, as the blood that had been shunted from the hot viscera and muscles to small blood vessels near the surface of the skin narrow and recede deeper into the underlying tissue where the heat of the little blood they carry is less easily dissipated. A pallor is observed as less and less heat-carrying blood flows near the surface of the skin. The raising of the individual’s sparse body hair (and accompanying goosebumps) may also occur—a vestigial response which served our hairy ancestors effectively in all but the strongest of winds by forming an insulating sac of air, warmed by body heat, and maintained by the portruding and overlapping hair folicles. These events, which constitute the first line of defense against a lowering of the individual’s body temperature (i.e., “cold”), go unnoticed, at least initially, by the individual.
