Interaction effects of indoor environmental quality on stress among young adults: An experimental study

What the study found

Participants worked at 20 or 25 C (between subjects) while crowd noise (50 vs 65 dB) and lighting color temperature (2700 vs 6500 K) varied within subjects. Skin conductance was higher at 25 C than at 20 C (0.87 vs 0.23 uS), and several stress responses depended on combinations of conditions and on BMI and gender. Noise and color temperature had no main effects on any stress measure, and temperature did not change HRV.

Limitations

Many interaction tests on a small sample with an uneven BMI split (13 vs 39), so the interaction findings are fragile. The anxiety result was confounded by TVOC.

Neurodesign interpretation

Warm offices may raise physiological arousal, but these data do not show that noise or color temperature alone drives stress at these levels.

Possible design implications

None yet. It supports testing temperature, noise and lighting together; the BMI and gender differences need replication before they inform design.

Study design

Controlled experiment (2x2x2 mixed design)

Population

Young adult students and researchers, mean age 22.9, USA; even gender split, 13 with overweight or obese BMI. Sample: 52.

Setting

Research office on a university campus under controlled conditions; about 135 minutes per session

Field

Thermal environment, Acoustics + soundscape, Lighting, Workplace design

Mechanism

Arousal + activation, Autonomic stress recovery

Spatial variable

Air temperature, Background noise level, Light spectrum

Keywords

air temperature, background noise level, light spectrum, arousal + activation, autonomic stress recovery

Notes and follow-up

Related records: ND-0001, ND-0002, ND-0007, ND-0019.