Perceived well-being and light-reactive hormones: An exploratory study

TONELLO, G; HERNÁNDEZ DE BORSETTI, N; BORSETTI, H; TERESCHUK, L; LÓPEZ ZIGARÁN, S

LIGHTING RESEARCH & TECHNOLOGY

SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD

Lugar: London; Año: 2019 p. 184 - 205

1477-1535

Light can impact psychobiological processes in a healthy or harmful way,challenging designers to better understand the resources they are manipulating.The present exploratory study compared two forms of office lighting whichdiffered in correlated colour temperatures and light level. A holistic approach,comprising visual, emotional and biological dimensions, was used to assess thelighting conditions that could favour productivity and well-being by means of theidentification of congruent relationships between objective and subjectivemeasurements in response to light stimuli. The former included analyses ofmelatonin and cortisol, and the latter were psychological instruments formeasuring transitory mood, somnolence, and visual comfort. Controlled experimentswere run in a laboratory with a repeated measures design, which yieldedfifty-six evaluations. Although no extreme ranges of correlated colour temperatureswere used in this study, the spectral blue component present in thecorrelated colour temperature of approximately 4000 K, and also provided by thelight-emitting diodes system at a higher light level, could have contributed torender most of the strong effects on the inter and intra correlations among thepsychobiological responses. The mediator role of the psychological profile of theindividuals was demonstrated by the significant predictive value of the perceivedstress measures.