The correlation of lighting and mood in the workplace: digital image-based research

Abstract

Mood affects an individual's performance, whether relaxed/tense or alert/fatigued. This article was based on research to study a correlation between the lighting setting with relaxed-tense and alert/fatigued moods in the workplace by observing the illuminance level, the correlated color temperature (CCT), and the overhead/peripheral placement of lighting. The research was conducted with two online image-based questionnaire evaluations of 7 different lighting settings specifying their illuminance level, CCT, and placement as overhead or peripheral lighting depicted in images from the DIALux simulation. In the first questionnaire, subjects were asked to rate the difference between the two lighting displays being compared and the combination of the seven lighting settings. In the second questionnaire, subjects were also asked to rate their relaxed-tense and alert-fatigued perceptions of the lighting diplayed in the image. The results of these two questionnaires were analyzed by multidimensional scaling and correlation analysis. This image-based research concluded that a relaxed/tense perceived mood correlated negatively with the CCT, and an alert/fatigued perceived mood correlated negatively with the illuminance level and the CCT.

Keywords

• alert
• correlated color temperature
• fatigue
• illuminance level
• lighting placement
• relaxed
• tense