Cold stimuli and cortical arousal both increase mean systemic arterial blood pressure (MBP), but detailed comparative studies of the underlying cardiovascular changes in response to the stimuli in the same subjects have not been described. With local Ethical Committee approval, we compared cardiovascular responses to immersion of a hand in ice-cold water (cold pressor test (CPT)) with those to mental arithmetic (MA) in healthy normal volunteers (21 males and 20 females, aged 20-23 years). The tests were applied on a single occasion with MA being applied for 3 min followed by CPT for 2 min, with a 15 min intervening period of rest. Measurements of heart rate (HR), MBP, stroke volume (SV), cardiac output (CO) and total peripheral resistance (TPR) were made using the Finometer (e.g., Leonetti et al., 2004) in supine subjects. Statistical comparisons were made using the Mann Whitney (between-groups) and Friedman (within-group) tests. At rest, there were no significant differences between baseline cardiovascular variables (mean ± s.e.) in males and females (heart rate 72 ± 2, 77 ± 2 beats min^-1; MBP 96 ± 2, 94 ± 2 mmHg; SV 81 ± 3, 69 ± 3 ml beat^-1; CO 5.9 ± 0.3, 5.4 ± 0.3 l min^-1; TPR 10.3 ± 0.6, 11.1 ± 0.6 units, respectively). In males, MA and CPT both caused rises in HR and MBP (at 60 sec, +22 ± 3 and ++11 ± 2 beats min^-1, +14 ± 2 and +21 ± 3 mmHg, respectively), but MA caused no significant change in SV (+5 ± 3 %,) and hence a rise in CO (+14 ± 2% P≤0.05) and fall in TPR (−11 ± 3 % P≤0.05), whereas CPT caused a fall in SV (−12 ± 3 % P≤0.05) with no significant change in CO (+3 ± 5%) and a rise in TPR (+22 ± 7 % P≤0.05). The responses in females showed a similar pattern. Thus, in females, changes in cardiovascular variables at 60 sec during MA were: HR + 23 ± 2 beats min^-1 P≤0.05, MBP +14 ± 2 mmHg P≤0.05, SV +1 ± 3 %, CO +27 ± 5% P≤0.05, TPR −9 ± 3% P≤0.05, and the corresponding changes during CPT were: HR +14 ± 2 beats min^-1 P≤0.05, MBP +19 ± 3 mmHg P≤0.05, SV −13 ± 2% P≤0.05, CO +4 ± 3%, TPR +17 ± 4% P≤0.05. The results show differential cardiac and vascular involvement in the pressor responses to CPT and MA, but with no apparent gender differences.