How indoor environmental quality affects occupants' cognitive functions: A systematic review

What the study found

Poorer indoor conditions were often associated with poorer cognitive performance, but effects varied by factor, task and study design.

Limitations

Large heterogeneity; causal evidence is uneven across IEQ domains; several domains have inconsistent results.

Neurodesign interpretation

This is the backbone evidence against designing each indoor parameter in isolation. A room can meet separate comfort targets while still producing cumulative cognitive burden.

Possible design implications

Treat cognition as an emergent outcome of multiple simultaneous environmental loads rather than a single-variable effect.

Why it stays in the corpus

Retain as the broad cognition map for IEQ and as a source-finding review.

Study design

Systematic review; 66 focused studies plus bibliometric mapping

Population

Humans across office, school and laboratory studies

Setting

Mixed indoor settings

Field

Indoor environmental quality

Mechanism

Cognitive load, arousal, sensory stress

Spatial variable

Air quality, thermal conditions, lighting, noise, visual conditions

Keywords

IEQ, cognition, air, thermal, light, noise, visual