Abbas PDF

Psychological and Physiological Effects of
Light and Colour on Space Users
A Dissertation Submitted in Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the Degree of Master of Engineering
by
Nadeen Abbas
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Science, Engineering and Technology Portfolio
RMIT University
March 2006
c 2006 Nadeen Abbas

All Rights Reserved
Declaration
I certify that except where due acknowledgement has been made, the work is that of the author
alone; the work has not been submitted previously, in whole or in part, to qualify for any other
academic award; the content of the thesis is the result of work which has been carried out since
the official commencement date of the approved research program; and, any editorial work, paid
or unpaid, carried out by a third party is acknowledged.
Signed: .................................................................... Date:...............................
Nadeen Abbas
i
This dissertation is dedicated to my Parents, Family & Friends
Acknowledgements
I would like to first thank Almighty God for all his blessings, one of them is being able to complete
this work which I hope will contribute to the welfare of people.
I would like at this juncture to express my deepest appreciation and gratitude to my supervisor
A/Prof. Dinesh Kank Kumar for his support, assistance and advice throughout my candidature
at RMIT University. My deepest thanks are extended to my co-supervisor Dr. Neil Mclachlan.
I gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the Australian Postgraduate Awards
(APA), which grated me a scholarship for supporting my research and living expenses.
I also wish to express my appreciation to A/Prof. Panlop Zeephongsekul, Faculty of Applied
Science Mathematics and Statistics at RMIT University, for his help and valuable comments
on statistical analysis. I also extend my deepest thanks and appreciation to Dr. SeedAhmed
Mahmoud and Dr. Esref Turker, RMIT University for their great support, help and encouragement
throughout my candidature.
I would like to thank my colleagues Prashant Suryanarayanan, Zuraini Dahari, Djuwari
Djuwari and Alexandru Fechete, with whom I shared the research office, for their support and
the wonderful time I spent with them. I would like to particularly thank my colleague Prashant
Suryanarayanan for his continuous help, assistance and support.
I would like to express my deepest appreciation and gratitude to my cousins Amin Abbas
and Nada Abuhamdeh, my friends Wigdan Mahamed, Yasmeen Hiyabo and Ruqaya Basheer
for their unlimited support. They are always there for me and are the ones I fall back upon when
I am weak. My deepest gratitude is extended to Mr Abdelkarim Hilli for his great support and
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advice. His doors were always open to me whenever I seek his help.
Finally I would like to dedicate this work to my parents, sister and brothers. I always tried
my best to make them proud of me. They have always been there to support me. No words can
ever express what they mean to me and how grateful I am to have them.
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Publications
Conference Publications
1. Nadeen Abbas, Dinesh Kumar and Neil Mclachlan, The Psychological and Phys-
iological Effects of Light and Colour on Space Users, 27th Annual International
Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, Shanghai, China,
September 2005.
2. Nadeen Abbas, Dinesh Kumar and Neil Mclachlan, Measuring the emotional and
physiological effects of light and colour on space users, 2nd International Confer-
ence on Informatics in Control, Automation & Robotics, Barcelona, Spain, September
2005.
3. Nadeen Abbas, Prashant Suryanarayanan and Dinesh K. Kumar, The Psychophys-

iological Impact of Colours and Lighting on Space Users, 5th Australian Space
Science Conference, September 2005.
Submitted Journal Publications
1. Nadeen Abbas, Dinesh K. Kumar and Neil Mclachlan, The Psychological and
Physiological Effects of Light and Colour on Space Users, Journal of Color Re-
search and Application .
2. Nadeen Abbas, Prashant Suryanarayanan and Dinesh K. Kumar, Correlation of

Psychological and Physiological Measures of Emotion, Journal of Bioengineering
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and Technology.
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Keywords
Colour, Electrocardiogram, Emotion, Heart Rate, Heart Rate Variability, Light, Lighting, Self
Assessment Manikin, Skin Conductance.
vii
Preface
T
he main topic of this reseach is to study the emotional effects of colour and lighting on
space users using physiological and psychological measures. It is clear from literature
that the choices of colour and lighting of constructed spaces are not based on scientific facts,
thus there is a need for a research that studies the impact of colour and light on people using sub-
jective and objective measures. I hope that this work will help Architects and Interior-Designers
in their choices of colour and light and inspires further research into this field.
Melbourne
March 2006
Nadeen Abbas
viii
CONTENTS
Declaration i
Acknowledgements iii
Publications v
Keywords vii
Preface viii
Acronyms xx
Abstract xxi
1 Introduction 1
2 Literature Review 3
2.1 Light, colour and emotion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.2 Measuring emotion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.3 Physiological measures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.3.1 Cardiac Activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.3.2 Skin conductance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.4 Psychological measure: Self Assessment Manikin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.5 Aim of the research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
ix
3 Methodology 10
3.1 Participants selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3.2 Experimental set up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.3 Equipments and signal processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.4 Statistical analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4 Results and Observation 15

4.1 ECG results and analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.2 SC results and analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
4.3 SAM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
4.3.1 Arousal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4.3.2 Valence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
4.4 One-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.5 Two-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
5 Discussion 31
5.1 Summary of Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
6 Conclusion 39
A ECG Recordings 41
B SC Recordings 72
C HR Charts 78
D SC Charts 84
E Arousal Charts 90
F Valence Charts 96
G Plain Language Summary 102
H Participant Consent Form 104
Bibliography 105
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LIST OF FIGURES
3.1 Electrode Placement for ECG Recordings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

3.2 Electrode Placement for SC Recordings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.1 ECG signal for participant 1 under White light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

4.2 Difference in mean HR for subject 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
4.3 SC signal for participant 10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
4.4 Change in mean SC for participant 10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
4.5 Change in arousal participant 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
4.6 Change in valence participant 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
A.1 Participant 1 - ECG Recordings for participant 1 for all colour lights . . . . . . . 42
(a) White light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
(b) Blue-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
(c) Blue-high light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
(d) Green-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
(e) Green-high light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
(f) Red-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
(g) Red-hig light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
(h) Natural light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
(a) White light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
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(b) Blue-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
(c) Blue-high light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
(d) Green-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
(f) Red-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
(g) Red-hig light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
(h) Natural light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
(a) White light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
(b) Blue-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
(c) Blue-high light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
(d) Green-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
(f) Red-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
(g) Red-hig light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
(h) Natural light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
(a) White light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
(b) Blue-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
(c) Blue-high light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
(d) Green-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
(f) Red-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
(g) Red-hig light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
(h) Natural light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
(a) White light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
(b) Blue-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
(c) Blue-high light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
(d) Green-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
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(f) Red-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
(g) Red-hig light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
(h) Natural light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
(a) White light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
(b) Blue-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
(c) Blue-high light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
(d) Green-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
(f) Red-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
(g) Red-hig light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
(h) Natural light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
(a) White light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
(b) Blue-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
(c) Blue-high light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
(d) Green-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
(f) Red-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
(g) Red-hig light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
(h) Natural light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
(a) White light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
(b) Blue-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
(c) Blue-high light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
(d) Green-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
(f) Red-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
(g) Red-hig light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
(h) Natural light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
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(a) White light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
(b) Blue-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
(c) Blue-high light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
(d) Green-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
(f) Red-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
(g) Red-hig light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
(h) Natural light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
A.10 Participant 10 - ECG Recordings for participant 10 for all colour lights . . . . . 60
(a) White light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
(b) Blue-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
(c) Blue-high light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
(d) Green-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
(f) Red-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
(g) Red-hig light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
(h) Natural light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
(a) White light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
(b) Blue-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
(c) Blue-high light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
(d) Green-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
(f) Red-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
(g) Red-hig light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
(h) Natural light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
(a) White light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
(b) Blue-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
(c) Blue-high light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
(d) Green-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
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(f) Red-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
(g) Red-hig light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
(h) Natural light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
(a) White light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
(b) Blue-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
(c) Blue-high light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
(d) Green-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
(f) Red-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
(g) Red-hig light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
(h) Natural light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
(a) White light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
(b) Blue-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
(c) Blue-high light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
(d) Green-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
(f) Red-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
(g) Red-hig light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
(h) Natural light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
(a) White light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
(b) Blue-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
(c) Blue-high light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
(d) Green-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
(f) Red-low light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
(g) Red-hig light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
(h) Natural light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
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(a) Participant 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
(b) Participant 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
(c) Participant 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
(a) Participant 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
(b) Participant 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
(c) Participant 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
(a) Participant 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
(b) Participant 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
(c) Participant 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
(a) Participant 10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
(b) Participant 11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
(c) Participant 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
(a) Participant 13 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
(b) Participant 14 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
(c) Participant 15 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
(a) Participant 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
(b) Participant 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
(c) Participant 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
(a) Participant 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
(b) Participant 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
(c) Participant 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
(a) Participant 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
(b) Participant 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
(c) Participant 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
(a) Participant 10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
(b) Participant 11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
(c) Participant 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
(a) Participant 13 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
(b) Participant 14 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
(c) Participant 15 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
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(a) Participant 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
(b) Participant 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
(c) Participant 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
(a) Participant 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
(b) Participant 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
(c) Participant 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
(a) Participant 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
(b) Participant 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
(c) Participant 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
(a) Participant 10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
(b) Participant 11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
(c) Participant 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
(a) Participant 13 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
(b) Participant 14 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
(c) Participant 15 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
(a) Participant 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
(b) Participant 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
(c) Participant 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
(a) Participant 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
(b) Participant 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
(c) Participant 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
(a) Participant 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
(b) Participant 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
(c) Participant 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
(a) Participant 10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
(b) Participant 11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
(c) Participant 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
(a) Participant 13 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
(b) Participant 14 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
(c) Participant 15 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
xvii
(a) Participant 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
(b) Participant 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
(c) Participant 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
(a) Participant 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
(b) Participant 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
(c) Participant 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
(a) Participant 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
(b) Participant 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
(c) Participant 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
(a) Participant 10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
(b) Participant 11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
(c) Participant 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
(a) Participant 13 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
(b) Participant 14 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
(c) Participant 15 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
xviii
LIST OF TABLES
3.1 Intensities of coloured lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.1 RR & HR values for participant 10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

4.2 Mean HR (beats/min) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4.3 Difference in mean HR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4.4 Normalised values of mean HR (White light as reference) . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4.5 Mean SC values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4.6 Difference in mean SC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
4.7 Normalised values of mean SC (white light as reference) . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
4.8 Values of arousal rating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4.9 3-point scale of arousal (N=neutral, E=excited, R=relaxed) . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
4.10 Values of valence rating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
4.11 3-point scale of valence (N=neutral, H=happy, UH=unhappy). . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.12 One-way ANOVA for HR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
4.13 One-way ANOVA for SC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
4.14 One-way ANOVA for arousal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4.15 One-way ANOVA for valence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4.16 Two-way ANOVA for HR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
4.17 Two-way ANOVA for SC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
4.18 Two-way ANOVA for arousal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
4.19 Two-way ANOVA for valence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
xix
Acronyms
ANS - Autonomic Nervous System

ANOVA - Analysis of Variance
ECG - Electrocardiogram
EDA - Electrodermal Activity
HR - Heart Rate
HRV - Heart Rate Variability
SC - Skin Conductance
SAM - Self Assessment Manikin
SS - Sum of Squares
df - Degrees of Freedom
MS - Mean Squares
xx
Abstract
T
he impact of colour and lighting conditions on the emotions and performance of people
is gaining greater importance in our urban societies. While large resources are allocated
for well designed spaces with the right choices of colour and lighting conditions, there is little
scientific evidence that supports these choices.
Although the literature on light and colour is extensive, it does not present a uniform set of
findings for a consistent perspective on the influence of colour and light. Most of the research
reported in this field uses subjective measures to study the emotional effects of light and colour
on people. It has been reported in literature that emotion manifests itself in three separate
sections; (i) physiological (i.e. objective measures), (ii) psychological (subjective measures),
(iii) behavioral, and it is necessary that studies not be limited to the assessment of a single
response but include sample measures from each of the three manifestations.
This research is built on the current body of knowledge that there is a need for a study on the
emotional effects of light and colour on people using physiological and psychological measures,
to ensure the objectivity and reproductivity of the experiments.
It is well documented in literature that there is close correlation between emotions, heart
rate (HR), and skin conductance (SC). Hence HR and SC are expected to be good physiological
measures of environmental conditions on people. Thus this thesis reports changes in the HR, SC
and self-assessment reports of arousal and valence (SAM) for people when exposed to different
colour and intensity lights. The aim is to help provide an objective rationale for the choice for
light intensity and colour by architects, interior designers and other professionals.
xxi
The experiments were conducted on 15 participants who were exposed to 8 different colour
and intensity light conditions. The participants HR and SC were recorded under each colour
and intensity light, and they were asked to complete SAM.
The research demonstrates that there is a change in HR, SC, arousal and valence of par-
ticipants due to change in the colour and intensity of lights. However, the direction of change
was subject dependent, where the same colour and intensity light can have different effects
on people. The research suggests that architects and designers of any space must take into
account the individual differences of the predicted users when designing the lights and colours.
It is also seen from the results that some colour and intensity lights have greater impact on
the emotions of participants than others. Although it is not possible to correlate the colour and
lighting conditions to a specific effect on all participants, general effects for some colour lights
were drawn from the results.
It is well documented in literature that HR and SC are a good measure of emotion. However
the results of this study show very high inter subject variation in HR and SC. This is due to
people having different HR and SC in normal conditions. This research demonstrates that the
use of HR and SC to measure the effect of a stimulus on a group of people is unreliable because
it is hard to compare the results.
xxii
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
T
he impact of colour and lighting conditions on the emotions and performance of space
users is gaining greater importance in our urban societies. While large resources are
allocated for well designed spaces with the right choices of colour and lighting conditions, there
is little scientific evidence that supports these choices. Although the literature on light and colour
is extensive, it does not present a uniform set of findings for a consistent perspective on the
influence of colour and light.
Most research that reports the emotional effects of light and colour on people are based
on subjective measures, however the outcome of subjective tests is questionable. It has been
reported in literature that emotion manifests itself in three separate sections (i) physiological
(i.e. objective measures), (ii) psychological (i.e. subjective measures) and (iii) behavioural, and
it is necessary that studies not be limited to the assessment of a single response.
Another problem is that researchers in this field have used different scales, which make the
comparison between the studies almost impossible.
Research on the physiological and psychological effects of colour was reported in literature;
however the research reported studies the short term effects of colour on people where they are
exposed to the colours for 6 seconds [1]. The results of the research are useful to study the
effects of colours in advertising however they can not be used for architecture and design.
It is seen from literature that the choices of light and colour by architects and designers are
not based on scientific facts. Therefore there is a need for a study on the emotional effects
1
Chapter 1. Introduction 2
of light and colour on people using physiological and psychological measures, to ensure the
objectivity and reproductivity of the experiments.
It is well documented in literature that there is close correlation between emotions, heart
rate (HR) and skin conductance (SC) [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9]. Hence HR and SC are
expected to be good physiological measures of environmental conditions on people. Thus this
thesis reports changes in the HR, SC and self-assessment reports of arousal and valence (SAM)
for people when exposed to different colour and intensity lights. The aim is to help provide an
objective rational for the choice for light intensity and colour by architects, interior designers and
other professionals.
The thesis is divided into six chapters. Chapter 1 contains the introduction. Chapter 2
contains the literature review, which reports the literature around the topic of the research and
discusses how the research is related to it. Chapter 3 describes the methodology, which reports
the methods followed to conduct the experiments. Chapter 4 reports the results and observa-
tions, which presents the results of the experiments. A sample recording, arbitrarily chosen, is
presented in this chapter while all recordings are presented in the appendix. Chapter 5 contains
the discussion, which lists the observations reported from the previous chapter providing a dis-
cussion for each observation. Chapter 6 contains the conclusion which gives a summary of the
research.
CHAPTER 2
Literature Review
T
his chapter discusses the literature around the topic of this research and how the re-
search is related to it. There are four main aspects in this research; the first is the
emotional effects of light and colour on people. The second aspect is measuring emotions,
which requires physiological and psychological measures. The second aspect leads to the third
and fourth aspects, which are the physiological measures and the psychological measures used
in the research.
2.1 Light, colour and emotion
There are a number of factors in a constructed environment that influence the psychological and
emotional state of the users. Light intensity and colour are two important factors with impact on
the users performance in the space. While people are known to adapt to different environments,
it is believed that there is a loss of productivity and general well being if they are not in certain
conditions.
It was noted by lIlumination Engineering Society of North America (IES) that lighting can
play an important role in reinforcing special perception, activity and mood setting [10]. Flagge
reports that light should produce a mood and atmosphere in a room, which corresponds to
peoples demand and expectation [11]. Turner also reports that changes in the intensity of a
light source can also alter the perceptual mood of a space [12].
3
Chapter 2. Literature Review 4
There are a number of publications that report research conducted to determine the effect
of various lighting and colour conditions on peoples emotions. Most of these are based on
subjective measures, where participants complete questionnaires to describe their feelings after
being exposed to different lighting and colours conditions.
Research conducted by Frasca on interior design for ambulatory care facilities reports some
important design factors. The research reports that colour and lighting have a profound influence
on patients and consumers, such as consumer satisfaction, stress level, health and well being.
The paper also reports that the effects of colour and lighting are inseparable and lighting intensity
affects the perception of colour [13].
Research by Knez et.al. report subjective tests to study the effects of the recommended
office lighting on mood and cognitive performance. The work demonstrates that the physical
setting of an office and the use of artificial light can have a significant impact on the mood of
the inhabitants [14]. Another research conducted by Hathaway found that students who study
under daylight like light were less absent and achieved higher scores than those working under
yellowish-orange sodium vapor bulbs [15]. Hupka et.al. conducted a research on a study of word
association and found that individuals readily associated colour with adjectives of emotion. A
number of researches done on trade and sales suggest that improving light quality could improve
productivity [16], [17], [18].
The literature on light and colour is extensive, however it does not present a uniform set of
findings for a consistent perspective on the influence of colour and light. Veitch et.al. report
in their research one problem facing designers and engineers is that there is no commonly-
accepted metric of lighting quality that predicts the effects of the luminous environment on the
occupants. It is commonly assumed that poor lighting quality has negative impact on the ability
of people to perform their work; however, few studies have attempted to quantify lighting quality
as a whole, and none of these has attempted to relate quantified quality to task performance
[19]. They also report that comparison between studies is nearly impossible because different
researches have used different scales. Also their documentation of the outcome measures fall
far short of the detail normally demanded by behavioural scientists, which creates problems for
later re-evaluation of the data [19].
Another problem is that most of the reported research is based on subjective tests; however
the outcome of subjective tests is questionable. It has been reported that subjective tests such
as questionnaires are insufficient and may be misleading especially when conducted at the end
of the experiment [20], [21]. Often, participants may mix their emotions between the start and
the end of experiments, and the recollection of a series of emotions that occurred earlier may
lack accuracy. Tiller also reports that examination of a multi-faceted concept such as lighting
quality should not rest on a single measurement nor a single measurement technique [22].
Veitch et.al. report that to assess lighting quality requires accurate measurements of
the relevant human activities, as well as accurately specified, appropriate lighting conditions.
Lighting research has typically failed to attend to the response side of the equation, possibly
because many researchers approach lighting from a background on the technical (stimulus)
side. They also report that past attempts to develop a metric for lighting quality, even in the
limited case of office lighting, have largely failed. One important reason for this failure is poor
science: poor research design, statistical analysis and reporting [23].
Valdez et.al. also report that it is difficult to abstract general patterns of findings from the
color-emotion literature, because experiments have used highly limited assessments of reactions
to color or have used differenct and non overlapping dimentions to assess emotional reaction
to color. He reports A comprehensive system for the description of emotions is needed to
compare and contrast findings from studies that have used these nonoverlapping dependent
measures [24].
Thus there is a need for a research that studies the effect of light and colour on people
using a number of measurements. The research data must also have the details that allow later
re-evaluation of it.
2.2 Measuring emotion
Thus there is a need for a research that studies the emotional effects of light and colour, it is
important to study how to measure emotions.
Lang et.al. report that emotion manifests itself in three separate sections; (i) physiological,
(ii) psychological (i.e. subjective experience) and (iii) behavioral. The physiological is the
change in the physical properties of the person, psychological being the subjective experience
while the behavioral is manifest by the physical actions such as approach and avoidance, each
of these associated with specific measures [20], [21]. They also report that it is necessary that
studies not be limited to the assessment of a single response but include sample measures from
each of the three manifestations.
Based on that it can be seen that the designers choices of colour and light are not based
on scientific facts as many of the research done in this area is based only on psychological
measures. Birren also discusses that light and color undoubtedly affect body functions just as
they exert an influence over so called mind and emotion. He said that feelings of dissatisfaction
and discomfort are derived in the luminous environment where biological information has been
lacking [25].
Binjamin et.al. studied the impact of short film clips on people. Each of these clips was on
for 6 seconds, some of them were coloured and some were black and white. Skin conductance,
heart rate and facial movement were used in the research as physiological measures in addition
to subjective tests to study the short-term effect of colours on people. The results indicated
the influence of colour in the subjective reports of emotional experience however no significant
influence was reported in the physiological measures. The paper recommends the further studies
to explore the impact of colour and light on heart rate of the people using stimuli of longer time
durations [1].
The authors are unable to find any research that has measured the physiological changes
in people due to light and colour stimuli of long duration. To identify the best choice of interior
conditions for buildings such as colour and light, there is a need to determine the physiologi-
cal changes in people under these conditions when the exposure is long enough to allow the
participants of the study to adapt to them.
Birren also discusses that the failure of many lighting designs result from putting the deco-
rative needs first and hoping that the practical needs will be satisfied as a byproduct in much
the same way as designing a teapot for its looks and then being surprised when it does not pour
[26].
The aim of this research is to provide an answer for the choice of light and colour conditions
in a constructed environment, which is for the betterment of health and well being of the oc-
cupants. This study reports experimental research conducted to identify the psychological and
physiological changes in participants when exposed to different colour and lighting conditions for
periods of time that allow them to adapt to these conditions. The physiological measures used
are heart rate and skin conductance, the psychological measure is Self Assessment Manikin.
2.3 Physiological measures
Physiological and psychological measures were used as a measure of emotions in this research.
The physiological measures used were cardiac activity and skin conductance.
2.3.1 Cardiac Activity
Cardiac activity is closely linked with the emotional state of an individual. Electrocardiograph
(ECG) is a non-invasive recording of the electrical activity of the heart; it is usually recorded
from the surface of the body. It is a good indicator for health of the heart and for measuring
heart rate (HR). HR is defined as the number of heart beats per minute and is recognized as a
non-invasive means to assess the state of the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) [27]. Increased
activity of the sympathetic branch of the ANS causes an increase in the HR while increase in
para-sympathetic branch causes a slow down in HR. When the individual is under stress, the
sympathetic activity is more profound than the para-sympathetic activity causing an imbalance
in the ANS and hence the HR of the person increases [28].
It is well documented there is a close correlation between HR and emotions. Levenson et.al.
report that anger, fear and sadness are associated with significant changes to the heart rate [2].
Vrana et.al. also report that there is a change in heart rate due to emotion. The acceleration
of heart rate is greater during disgust, joy and anger imageries than during pleasant imageries
[3] or neutral imagery [4]. Smith et.al. report that the heart rate measure offered strong support
between anticipated effort and arousal [5].
It was also reported by Steiner et.al. that changes in attention and emotional processing
have been associated with changes in heart rate [29]. Ardle ed.al. report that an individuals
heart rate is a good measure of physical stress [30].
Heart rate variability (HRV) analysis is a measure of the variability in heart rate, specifically
variability in intervals between successive R waves- RR intervals. RR interval is defined as time
in milliseconds between two normal R to R waves of an ECG wave. The HRV is also a dynamic
signal whose statistical properties vary with time [31].

2.3.2 Skin conductance
Skin conductance (SC) is one of the fastest responding non-invasive measures of ANS activity.
It is a method of capturing the autonomic nerve response as a parameter of the sweat gland.
Physically, SC is a change in the electrical properties of the skin in response to different kinds
of stimuli. The response is measured by the change in voltage from the surface of the skin [32].
The close correlation between SC and emotions is well documented in the literature. Lane
et.al. report that SC shows different values for different emotions when studying the effects of
emotional valence, arousal and attention on neural activation during visual processing of pictures
[6]. Storm et.al. also report that SC fluctuations are a measure of preoperative stress [7]. Healy
et.al. used SC as a measure of the emotional stress developed during driving [8]. Heo et.al.
used SC as a measure of emotional response to web advertising [9].
It is reported in literature that SC response is a more reliable measure for determining ANS
activity that the tonic measures [33], [34], [35]. The magnitude of SC is related to the magnitude
of the stimulus, in other words stronger stimuli elicit stronger responses [34].
2.4 Psychological measure: Self Assessment Manikin
The psychological measure used for measuring emotions is the Self Assessment Manikin (SAM).
SAM is a picture-oriented instrument devised by Lang to directly assess the pleasure, arousal and
dominance associated in response to an object or event. These measures were used because
they provide a descriptive system for emotions. Mehrabian et.al. report that the dimensions of
pleasure, arousal and dominance could provide a general description oe emotions [36]. They
also report that most of the reliable variance in 42 verbal-report scales could be accounted for
terms of the PAD (i.e., pleasure, arousal and dominace) emotion scales [24].
SAM was originally implemented as an interactive computer program, and later was ex-
panded to include a paper-and -pencil version for use in groups and mass screening. SAM
ranges from a smiling happy figure to a frowning, unhappy figure when representing the valence
dimension, and ranges from an exciting, wide-eyed figure to a relaxed, sleepy figure for the
arousal dimension. The dominance dimension represents changes in control with changes in
the size of SAM [37], [38]. However in this research only the dimensions of valence and arousal
in SAM were used.

Lang et.al. report that SAM has been used effectively to measure emotional responses in
a variety of situations, including reactions to pictures [39], [40], images [41], advertisements
[42], painful stimuli [43] and more. They also report that SAM is a useful instrument when
determining the subjective experience of emotion associated with processing most stimuli, and
can be employed with variety of subject populations, including non-English speaking subjects,
children, people with language disorder and all clinical syndromes[37].
2.5 Aim of the research
Based on literature, there is a need for a study on the emotional effects of light and colour on
people using physiological and psychological measures, to ensure the objectivity and reproduc-
tivity of the experiments. This research reports changes in the HR, SC and SAM for people
when exposed to different colour and intensity lights for periods of time that allowed them to
adapt to the conditions. The aim is to help provide an objective rational for the choice for light
intensity and colour by architects, interior designers and other professionals.

CHAPTER 3
Methodology
T
his research is built on the current body of knowledge that physiological and psycho-
logical measures are required to determine the emotional effects of light and colour
on the users of a constructed environment. The research reports changes in heart rate (HR),
skin conductance (SC) and Self Assessment Manikin (SAM) due to changes in the colour and
intensity of lights. In order to do that, controlled experiments were conducted with all possible
variables that may affect the measures, except colour and light intensity, kept constant. This
was necessary to ensure that the changes recorded were due to the effect of colour and lighting
conditions only.
The data was then analysed and descriptive statistical evaluations (such as mean and stan-
dard deviation) have been used to examine the effect of light and colour on the HR, SC and
SAM. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was then performed to determine the statistical significance
in the changes detected.
3.1 Participants selection
The experiments were conducted on 15 healthy participants comprising 3 males and 12 females.
They were not under any medication that may affect their mental and neural activities. All
participants had normal colour vision. The participants were recruited with the help of posters
and most were university students. Their participation was voluntary. Ethics approval for the
10
Chapter 3. Methodology 11
experiments was obtained from RMIT University Human Ethics committee, and participants
completed consent forms before the experiment. Participants were made aware of the details of
the experiments and were also informed that they could stop the experiment if they chose to.
3.2 Experimental set up
The experiments were conducted under controlled conditions. Attempts were made to keep
all variables, other than colour and intensity of light, constant. This was necessary to ensure
that any psychological or physiological changes detected are due to change in the colour and
intensity of lights.
Environmental conditions such as air temperature, humidity, furniture and layout were kept
constant. All experiments were conducted in a quite laboratory early in the morning to exclude
noise disturbance and circadian rhythms as potential confounds. It was important to conduct
all experiments at the same time of the day. Scheer et.al. report that their research demon-
strated that light increases resting HR depending on the phase of the day-night cycle and the
intensity of light [44]. Leproult et.al. also report that their research demonstrate an effect of
the corticotropic axis that is dependent on time of the day [45].
The order and interval of exposure to lights were also kept constant for all participants. The
duration of the experiment was approximately 110 minutes, during this time the participants
were engaged in a prepared non-controversial discussion on the history of architecture so as to
reduce mental stress due to boredom. The style of speaking was maintained constant to avoid
the sound and conversation related variations during the experiments.
The experiments were conducted in a neutrally coloured and furnished multi user laboratory
approximately 10m x 4m in size. The room had only one window which was covered by a large
1.5m x 2m opaque non-reflecting white screen. The walls were covered with white cardboard.
Participants were seated comfortably facing the screen, approximately 1.5m away from it. They
were exposed to the different light and colour conditions by illuminating the screen with flood
lights. They were also exposed to natural light from the window by removing the screen that is
covering it.
The floodlights used were 80 Watt, 240 Volt bulbs. Six globes of each colour were placed
on the ceiling and four were placed on the sides. Two intensities of each coloured light were
used, for the high intensity 10 globes of each coloured light were lit and for the low intensity 5
globes of each coloured light were lit. The lighting conditions were recorded using LUX and FC
light meter as described in Table 3.1.
Table 3.1: Intensities of coloured lights

Color of Lights Intensity of light in Lux
White 207
Blue low 28
Blue high 48
Green low 90
Green high 169
Red low 92
Red high 157
Natural 20 - 105
The duration of the complete experiment was approximately 110 minutes; participants were
exposed to each coloured light for 10 minutes. The participants HR and SC were recorded in
the last 2 minutes under each colour and intensity light, so they were given 8 minutes to adapt to
the conditions before the recording. It was observed in preliminary experiments that 8 minutes
were sufficient to ensure that participants adapted to the light and colour. A 3-minute break was
given to the participants after being exposed to each lighting condition; during this time they
were allowed to move and were asked to complete a paper and pencil version of SAM.
In order to ensure that there is clear recording of the physiological signals, the surface of the
skin was prepared for the recoding. The skin of the wrist and leg was prepared for recording of
HR using wipes. Three disposable Ag/AgCl electrodes were firmly stuck for the duration of the
complete experiment, two electrodes on each of the wrists and the ground electrode on the right
ankle. The electrodes were attached as shown in Figure 3.1. The electrodes were packaged
with wet gel by the manufacturer.
The fingers were prepared for recording SC using wipes. Two electrodes were wrapped
around two fingers in the right hand for the duration of the complete experiment as shown in
Figure 3.2. The participants HR and SC were recorded in the last 2 minutes under each coloured
light.
Figure 3.1: Electrode Placement for ECG Recordings
Figure 3.2: Electrode Placement for SC Recordings
3.3 Equipments and signal processing
ECG and SC signals were recorded using AMLAB Biosignal recording equipment. SC was
measured using Autogenics Single-Channel SCR Monitor that was connected to AMLAB. The
sampling rate was set at 200 samples/second. The data were saved as text files and were further
processed and analysed using MATLAB software.
To analyse the ECG signal first the RR interval was calculated using MATLAB software. The
RR intervals were then exported to the Software Package Advanced HRV Analysis [46] where
HR was calculated. The SC data was analysed using MATLAB software. The statistical analysis
was performed using MINITAB software.
3.4 Statistical analysis
The statistical analysis was performed on the HR, SC and SAM results to determine if there
was a change in the measures recorded due to change in the colour and intensity of lights. The
statistical analysis was performed using the statistical software MINITAB.
One-way ANOVA was then performed on the data to determine the significance of the
changes detected, p-value was calculated from ANOVA tests. The p-value is the probability
of finding a difference between two group means. If the p-value is less than 0.05, then the
difference is significant and not caused by chance.
Two-way ANOVA with critical value or 0.05 and confidence level of 95% was also performed
on HR, SC, arousal and valence values to determine the significance of the changes detected.
The two factors considered were colour and person. When colour was taken as a factor,
changes in HR, SC and subjective tests of all participants were considered under each colour
light. When person was taken as a factor, changes of HR, SC and subjective tests were
considered for each person separately. In addition bar charts and graphs were used to assess
the nature of the statistical data.

CHAPTER 4
Results and Observation
T
he aim of this research is to study the effect of different colour and intensity lights on
the users of a constructed environment. Experiments were conducted towards this aim
as explained in the Methodology chapter. This chapter presents the results of the experiments
and tabulates all the data. A sample recording, arbitrarily chosen, is presented in this chapter
while all recordings are shown in the Appendix.
4.1 ECG results and analysis
This section explains how HR was extracted from the ECG recording. The ECG signals were
recorded for 2 minutes under each colour and intensity light for all subjects using AMLAB biosig-
nal recording equipment. The data was saved as text files. These files were exported to MATLAB
software for analysis. The raw ECG signal for participant 1 under White light is shown as an
example in Figure 4.1.
R peaks (RR interval) were calculated for each recording using MATLAB. These figures were
then exported to the Advanced HRV Analysis software [ HRV]. Using this software the mean RR,
standard deviation (std) of RR, mean HR and std HR for each of the recordings were calculated.
A sample of the results calculated using the Advanced HRV Analysis software for participant 10
is shown in Table 4.1.
The mean HR for all participants has been tabulated. Using the Microsoft Excel software
15
Chapter 4. Results and Observation 16
0.2
0.15
0.1
Voltage/volts
0.05
0.05
0.1
0.15
460 480 500 520 540 560 580 600
Time/sec
Figure 4.1: ECG signal for participant 1 under White light
Table 4.1: RR & HR values for participant 10
Parameters Units White Blue-high Blue-low Green-high Green-low Red-high Red-low Natural
Mean RR sec 0.73 0.70 0.72 0.70 0.72 0.75 0.68 0.65
std RR sec 0.197 0.175 0.148 0.165 0.158 0.153 0.185 0.125
Mean HR per/min 89.80 91.02 86.97 90.26 87.12 84.03 93.53 96.99
std HR per/min 26.09 23.14 18.11 21.96 17.12 18.59 21.49 19.81
package, spread sheet calculation was used to calculate the mean and standard deviation (std)
of HR for each participant. The mean HR for all participants under each colour light was also
calculated. All these results are tabulated and are shown in Table 4.2.
It is observed from the results that there is variation in HR under different colour and intensity
lights. For better comparison of the change seen in Table 4.2, the HR under white light was
taken as a base level for each subject and the mean HR reading under all other colour lights
were compared to it. Subtracting the mean HR under white light from the mean HR under each
colour light provided these figures; the results are tabulated and shown in Table 4.3.
Table 4.2: Mean HR (beats/min)
Subject White Blue-low Blue-high Green-low Green-high Red-low Red-high Natural Mean SD
1 80.33 92.21 85.86 85.42 87.53 87.82 82.14 80.40 85.21 4.11
2 89.59 77.09 82.24 83.67 87.12 81.24 79.54 82.27 82.85 4.00
3 78.17 79.16 83.00 80.63 66.49 82.94 85.96 69.48 78.23 6.82
4 73.68 78.80 82.78 84.11 78.50 81.61 75.62 78.74 79.23 3.52
5 93.04 97.16 94.86 90.43 93.26 92.17 89.16 88.88 92.37 2.85
6 83.25 88.62 93.01 82.09 84.27 81.29 89.90 77.73 85.02 5.07
7 79.09 78.88 79.37 77.40 82.79 76.46 87.60 75.29 79.61 3.93
8 71.52 81.02 78.03 89.14 72.08 85.82 78.52 80.02 79.52 6.06
9 86.28 78.25 82.64 69.30 74.93 80.29 77.34 72.84 77.73 5.44
10 89.80 86.97 91.02 87.12 90.26 93.53 84.03 96.99 89.97 4.06
11 85.93 83.28 75.56 77.03 91.25 89.29 86.71 78.26 83.41 5.88
12 90.82 90.27 93.47 93.94 89.78 94.36 82.53 87.63 90.35 3.92
13 76.02 87.24 80.69 73.87 78.22 72.54 76.71 74.26 77.44 4.73
14 89.43 86.19 84.24 84.01 87.00 82.97 78.95 83.73 84.57 3.10
15 80.83 75.21 87.93 81.83 85.98 85.91 90.29 82.42 83.80 4.73
Mean 83.19 84.02 84.98 82.67 83.30 84.55 83 80.60 - -
SD 6.71 6.38 5.91 6.45 7.72 6.18 5.06 6.93 - -
Table 4.3: Difference in mean HR
1 0 11.88 5.53 5.09 7.2 7.49 1.81 0.07 4.88 4.11
2 0 -12.5 -7.35 -5.92 -2.47 -8.35 -10.05 -7.32 -6.75 4.00
3 0 0.99 4.83 2.46 -11.68 4.77 7.79 -8.69 0.06 6.82
4 0 5.12 9.1 10.43 4.82 7.93 1.94 5.06 5.55 3.52
5 0 4.12 1.82 -2.61 0.22 -0.87 -3.88 -4.16 -0.67 2.85
6 0 5.37 9.76 -1.16 1.02 -1.96 6.65 -5.52 1.77 5.07
7 0 -0.21 0.28 -1.69 3.7 -2.63 8.51 -3.8 0.52 3.93
8 0 9.5 6.51 17.62 0.56 14.3 7 8.5 8.00 6.06
9 0 -8.03 -3.64 -16.98 -11.35 -5.99 -8.94 -13.44 -8.55 5.44
10 0 -2.83 1.22 -2.68 0.46 3.73 -5.77 7.19 0.17 4.06
11 0 -2.65 -10.37 -8.9 5.32 3.36 0.78 -7.67 -2.52 5.88
12 0 -0.55 2.65 3.12 -1.04 3.54 -8.29 -3.19 -0.47 3.92
13 0 11.22 4.67 -2.15 2.2 -3.48 0.69 -1.76 1.42 4.73
14 0 -3.24 -5.19 -5.42 -2.43 -6.46 -10.48 -5.7 -4.87 3.10
15 0 -5.62 7.1 1 5.15 5.08 9.46 1.59 2.97 4.73
Mean 0 0.84 1.79 -0.52 0.11 1.36 -0.19 -2.59 - -
SD 0 7.06 6.05 8.07 5.53 6.28 7.23 6.14 - -
For more comparison the results were also normalised for each subject by taking the mean
HR under white light as a reference. Dividing the mean HR under each colour light by the mean
HR under white light gave these figures. The results are tabulated and shown in Table 4.4.
Table 4.4: Normalised values of mean HR (White light as reference)
1 1 1.15 1.07 1.06 1.09 1.09 1.02 1.00 1.06 0.05
2 1 0.86 0.92 0.93 0.97 0.91 0.89 0.92 0.92 0.04
3 1 1.01 1.06 1.03 0.85 1.06 1.1 0.89 1.00 0.09
4 1 1.07 1.12 1.14 1.07 1.11 1.03 1.07 1.08 0.05
5 1 1.04 1.02 0.97 1.00 0.99 0.96 0.96 0.99 0.03
6 1 1.07 1.12 0.99 1.01 0.98 1.08 0.93 1.02 0.06
7 1 1.00 1.00 0.98 1.05 0.97 1.11 0.95 1.01 0.05
8 1 1.13 1.09 1.25 1.01 1.2 1.10 1.12 1.11 0.08
9 1 0.91 0.96 0.80 0.87 0.93 0.90 0.84 0.90 0.06
10 1 0.97 1.01 0.97 1.01 1.04 0.94 1.08 1.00 0.05
11 1 0.97 0.88 0.90 1.06 1.04 1.01 0.91 0.97 0.07
12 1 0.99 1.03 1.03 0.99 1.04 0.91 0.97 0.99 0.04
13 1 1.15 1.06 0.97 1.03 0.95 1.01 0.98 1.02 0.06
14 1 0.96 0.94 0.94 0.97 0.93 0.88 0.94 0.95 0.03
15 1 0.93 1.09 1.01 1.06 1.06 1.12 1.02 1.04 0.06
Mean 1 1.01 1.03 1.00 1.00 1.02 1.00 0.97 - -
SD 0 0.09 0.07 0.10 0.07 0.08 0.09 0.08 - -
Using Excel software, the difference in mean HR obtained from table 3 were put into bar
charts. An example for participant 5 is shown in Figure 4.2.
It is observed from Table 4.3, Table 4.4 and Figure 4.2 that there is variation in HR under
different colour and intensity lights. It is also noted that some colours and intensities caused
greater changes in HR than others. Red high light caused the largest increase in HR for 20%
of the subjects and the largest decrease in HR for 20% of the subjects. Blue low light caused
the largest increase in HR for 20% of the subjects and the largest decrease in HR for 13% of
the subjects. Natural light caused the largest decrease in HR for 20% of the subjects. It is
also observed that the direction of change in HR (increase or decrease) is subject dependent,
where the same colour and intensity light can cause an increase in HR of some subjects and a
decrease in HR for others. Also the inter subject variation in HR is very large. That can be seen
clearly from the last rows in Table 4.3 & Table 4.4 where the variation in HR between different
Subject 5
5
Bluelow
4
2 Bluehigh
Change in HR (beats/minute)
1
Greenhigh
White Greenlow Redlow Redhigh Natural
0
5
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Colour of lights
Figure 4.2: Difference in mean HR for subject 5
colour and intensity lights is relatively small compared to the inter subject variation.
4.2 SC results and analysis
SC of participants was recorded for 2 minutes under each colour and intensity light using AMLAB
biosignal recording equipment. The data was saved as text files, these files were then exported
to MATLAB software for analysis. Using MATLAB, the SC recordings for each participant were
put into graphs. Figure 4.3 shows SC graph for subject 10.
13
12
Natural
Skin conductance, micro siemens
11
10
Green low
9
Red low
Red high
7 White
Blue low Blue high
Green high
5
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
4
x 10
Samples
Figure 4.3: SC signal for participant 10

Using the same software, the values of SC were averaged over the two minutes for each
recording. These values were tabulated. The mean and standard deviation (std) of SC for each
participant were then calculated using Excel. The mean and std of SC for all participants under
each colour light were tabulated and the results are shown in Table 4.5.
It is observed from Table 4.5 that there is variation in SC under different colour and intensity
lights. The SC under white light was then taken as a base level for each subject and SC readings
under all other colour lights were compared to it. Subtracting the mean SC under white light
from each coloured light provided these figures; the results are tabulated and shown in Table
4.6.
Table 4.5: Mean SC values
1 20.38 13.65 16.18 19.95 13.59 19.61 20.38 21.34 18.14 3.17
2 7.9 9.31 7.64 6.8 6.22 6.13 5.22 6.09 6.91 1.30
3 16.5 27.12 26.54 99.91 99.92 64.62 17.36 41.39 49.17 34.90
4 60.7 61.22 59.12 56.72 54.61 53.1 51.89 51.05 56.05 3.99
5 9.14 12.71 11.09 10.49 11.37 8.58 10.07 7.45 10.11 1.68
6 13.99 15.55 23.77 31.24 16.85 18.5 21.81 25.25 20.87 5.77
7 27.13 50.31 49.95 39.22 43.57 55.28 53.89 69.56 48.61 12.48
8 55.74 25.6 65.09 47.32 90.25 99.92 99.92 99.92 72.97 28.63
9 30.44 15.06 13.88 43.02 38.7 33.98 45.66 37.46 32.28 11.97
10 6.05 5.75 6.38 9.41 5.36 8.51 7.96 11.47 7.61 2.12
11 40.04 55.35 50.35 51.93 57.88 59.87 63.02 47.25 53.21 7.42
12 25.04 28.55 30.77 35.59 37.57 35.05 42.08 35.96 33.83 5.42
13 38.2 74.78 64.01 23.62 28.94 29.13 24.36 40.91 40.49 19.05
14 7.46 7.07 6.84 6.63 7.61 7.78 6.72 5.68 6.97 0.67
15 8.1 9.6 9.42 10.07 11.57 11.33 11.14 10.52 10.22 1.17
Mean 24.45 27.44 29.40 32.79 34.93 34.09 32.10 34.09 - -
SD 17.65 22.24 22.23 25.33 30.07 27.41 26.86 26.42 - -
The results were also normalised for each subject by taking the mean SC under white light
as a reference, the results are tabulated and shown in Table 4.7.
Using Excel, the difference in mean SC obtained from Table 4.6 was then put into bar charts
for comparison. An example for subject 10 is shown in Figure 4.4.

Table 4.6: Difference in mean SC
1 0 -6.73 -4.2 -0.43 -6.78 -0.77 0.01 0.97 - 2.56 3.17
2 0 1.4 -0.26 -1.11 -1.69 -1.77 -2.68 -1.81 - 1.13 1.30
3 0 10.62 10.04 83.42 83.42 48.13 0.86 24.89 37.34 34.90
4 0 0.52 -1.58 -3.98 -6.09 -7.6 -8.81 -9.65 - 5.31 3.99
5 0 3.57 1.95 1.35 2.22 -0.57 0.93 -1.69 1.11 1.68
6 0 1.56 9.78 17.25 2.86 4.51 7.83 11.26 7.86 5.77
7 0 23.18 22.82 12.09 16.44 28.15 26.76 42.43 24.55 12.48
8 0 -30.14 9.36 -8.41 34.51 44.18 44.18 44.18 19.69 28.63
9 0 -15.38 -16.56 12.58 8.25 3.54 15.21 7.02 2.09 11.97
10 0 -0.3 0.32 3.36 -0.7 2.45 1.9 5.42 1.78 2.12
11 0 15.31 10.3 11.89 17.84 19.83 22.97 7.21 15.05 7.42
12 0 3.51 5.73 10.55 12.53 10.01 17.05 10.92 10.04 5.42
13 0 36.58 25.81 -14.58 -9.27 -9.07 -13.84 2.7 2.62 19.06
14 0 -0.39 -0.62 -0.83 0.16 0.32 -0.74 -1.78 - 0.55 0.67
15 0 1.49 1.32 1.97 3.47 3.23 3.04 2.42 2.42 1.17
Mean - 2.99 4.95 8.34 10.48 9.64 7.64 9.63 - -
SD - 15.38 10.50 22.50 23.17 17.64 15.10 15.75 - -
Table 4.7: Normalised values of mean SC (white light as reference)
1 1 0.67 0.79 0.98 0.67 0.96 1.00 1.05 0.87 0.16
2 1 1.18 0.97 0.86 0.79 0.78 0.66 0.77 0.86 0.17
3 1 1.64 1.61 6.06 6.06 3.92 1.05 2.51 3.26 2.12
4 1 1.01 0.97 0.93 0.90 0.87 0.85 0.84 0.91 0.06
5 1 1.39 1.21 1.15 1.24 0.94 1.10 0.82 1.12 0.19
6 1 1.11 1.70 2.23 1.20 1.32 1.56 1.80 1.56 0.39
7 1 1.85 1.84 1.45 1.61 2.04 1.99 2.56 1.91 0.36
8 1 0.46 1.17 0.85 1.62 1.79 1.79 1.79 1.35 0.54
9 1 0.49 0.46 1.41 1.27 1.12 1.50 1.23 1.07 0.42
10 1 0.95 1.05 1.56 0.89 1.41 1.32 1.90 1.29 0.36
11 1 1.38 1.26 1.30 1.45 1.50 1.57 1.18 1.38 0.14
12 1 1.14 1.23 1.42 1.50 1.40 1.68 1.44 1.40 0.18
13 1 1.96 1.68 0.62 0.76 0.76 0.64 1.07 1.07 0.54
14 1 0.95 0.92 0.89 1.02 1.04 0.90 0.76 0.93 0.09
15 1 1.19 1.16 1.24 1.43 1.40 1.38 1.30 1.30 0.11
Mean - 1.16 1.20 1.53 1.49 1.42 1.27 1.40 - -
SD - 0.44 0.38 1.31 1.30 0.78 0.42 0.59 - -
Subject 10
6
Natural
Change in SC (micro siemens)

Greenlow
Redlow
2 Redhigh
Bluehigh
White Bluelow Greenhigh
0
1
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Colour of lights
Figure 4.4: Change in mean SC for participant 10
It is observed from Table 4.6, Table 4.7 and the barcharts that 60-73% of the non-white
conditions caused higher SC than white conditions. It is also noted that some colours caused
greater change in SC than other colours. Natural light caused the largest increase in SC for 20%
of the subjects and the largest decrease in SC for 20% of subjects. Green high light caused
the largest increase in SC for 13% of the subjects and the largest decrease in SC for 13% of
the subjects. Red high light caused the largest increase in SC for 20% of the subjects and blue
low light caused the largest decrease in SC for 20% of the subjects. It has also been observed
that the direction of change in SC (increase or decrease) is subject dependent, where the same
colour and intensity light can cause an increase in SC for some subjects and a decrease in SC
for others. However it is also noted from the results that the inter subject variation is large. That
can be seen clearly from the last rows in Table 4.6 & Table 4.7 where the variation in SC between
different colour and intensity lights is relatively small compared to the inter subject variation.
4.3 SAM
Participants indicated their reactions to different colour and intensity lights by providing valence
and arousal rating in SAM. SAM is a nine-point rating ranging from -4 to 4 for each dimension.
For the arousal dimension, SAM ranges from an excited, wide-eyed figure (rated 4) to a relaxed
sleepy figure (rated -4). For the valence dimension, SAM ranges from a smiling happy figure
(rated 4) to a frowning unhappy figure (rated -4).
4.3.1 Arousal
Participants were asked to give their arousal rating after being exposed to each colour and
intensity light. The figure ratings were then transferred to numbers (-4 to 4). Using Excel, the
mean and std arousal of all participants under each colour light were calculated. The results are
tabulated and shown in Table 4.8.
The results were then put into bar charts for comparison, an example for participant 3 is
shown as an example in Figure 4.5.
Table 4.8: Values of arousal rating
Subject White Blue-low Blue-high Green-low Green-high Red-low Red-high Natural

1 0 1 -2 -4 0 2 3 3
2 0 -1 -2 2 4 -2 -2 -4
3 -3 -2 -1 1 2 2 3 0
4 0 2 -1 0 0 2 -2 -4
5 -4 -2 -2 0 1 1 4 4
6 0 -1 -2 -2 1 -1 0 2
7 0 -2 -4 -1 -2 -1 0 3
8 0 1 2 1 2 0 1 2
9 0 -3 -4 0 2 2 2 2
10 4 3 4 4 3 4 4 4
11 0 0 -2 0 -2 2 3 -3
12 0 -2 0 2 0 2 2 0
13 2 4 2 3 0 0 1 -2
14 -2 -4 -4 -2 0 0 0 -1
15 0 -3 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 -3
Mean -0.2 -0.6 -1.33 0.07 0.6 0.8 1.27 0.2
SD 1.86 2.35 2.44 2.22 1.80 1.66 1.94 2.88
It is observed from Table 4.8 and the barcharts that there is a change in arousal rating under
different colour and intensity lights. These changes were also subject dependent, where the
same colour and intensity light can cause different arousal effects on different people.
Subject 3
4
Redhigh
3
Greenhigh Redlow
2
Greenlow
1
Arousal rating
White Bluelow Bluehigh Natural

0
4
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Colour of lights
Figure 4.5: Change in arousal participant 3
Table 4.9: 3-point scale of arousal (N=neutral, E=excited, R=relaxed)

1 N E R R N E E E
2 N R R E E R R R
3 R R R E E E E N
4 N E R N N E R R
5 R R R N E E E E
6 N R R R E R N E
7 N R R R R R N E
8 N E E E E N E E
9 N R R N E E E E
10 E E E E E E E E
11 N N R N R E E R
12 N R N E N E E N
13 E E E E N E E R
14 R R R R N N N R
15 N R R R R R N R
For further analysis, the 9-point scale was modified to a 3-point scale. That was done by
considering all positive values to be 1-point (excited) and considering all negative values to be
1-point (relaxed). Zero values were considered as neutral. The modified 3-point scale was done
manually and is shown in Table 4.9.
Although the changes in arousal were subject dependent, some general trends could be
drawn from Table 4.9. It was observed that the white light caused a neutral effect on 67% of
participants, blue low light caused a relaxing effect on 60% of participants and blue high light
caused a relaxing effect on 73% of participants. Red low light caused an exciting effect on 53%
of participants and red high light caused an exciting effect on 60% of participants.
4.3.2 Valence
Participants were asked to give their valence rating after being exposed to each colour and
intensity light. The figure ratings were then transferred to numbers (-4 to 4). Using Excel, the
mean and std valence of all participants under each colour light were calculated. The results
are tabulated and shown in Table 4.10.
Table 4.10: Values of valence rating

1 0 -3 -2 2 4 3 2 4
2 0 1 1 2 4 0 2 0
3 0 2 -1 2 -1 0 2 2
4 2 2 0 0 2 2 0 0
5 2 2 2 2 2 2 4 4
6 -2 -1 0 -1 1 0 -1 2
7 0 0 0 1 1 0 2 3
8 0 1 1 2 2 1 1 2
9 0 0 0 0 2 2 2 2
10 4 4 4 4 3 4 4 4
11 1 0 -1 2 2 -2 -4 4
12 4 2 0 2 4 -1 -2 0
13 3 4 2 2 2 -2 -2 0
14 0 1 1 2 2 2 2 1
15 0 1 1 2 3 1 2 3
Mean 0.93 1.07 0.53 1.6 2.2 0.8 0.93 2.07
SD 1.71 1.79 1.46 1.18 1.32 1.74 2.28 1.58
The results were then put into bar charts for comparison, an example for participant 3 is
shown as an example in Figure 4.6.
Subject 3
2.5
Bluelow Greenlow Redhigh Natural

2
1.5
1
Valence rating
0.5
White Bluehigh Greenhigh Redlow

0
0.5
1.5
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Colour of lights
Figure 4.6: Change in valence participant 3
It is observed from Table 4.10 and the barcharts that there is a change in valence rating
under different colour and intensity lights. These changes were also subject dependent, where
the same colour and intensity light can cause different valence effects on different people.
For further analysis, the 9-point scale was modified to a 3-point scale. That was done by
considering all positive values to be 1-point (happy) and considering all negative values to be
1-point (unhappy). Zero values were considered as neutral. The modified 3-point scale was
done manually and is shown in Table 4.11.
It is observed from Table 4.11 that there are some colour and intensity lights that caused
a very high percentage of pleasant happy effect on participants. Green high light caused a
happy effect on 93% of participants; green low caused the same effect on 80% of participants
and natural light caused that effect on 73% of participants. It was observed that all colours and
intensities caused a happy or neutral effect on most participants. Some colour lights like green
low, green high and white caused an unpleasant effect on only 7% of the participants. Blue low
caused an unpleasant effect on 13% of participants, blue high and red low caused that effect
for 20% of participants, while red high caused it for 26% of participants. Natural light did not
cause an unpleasant effect for any participants.

Table 4.11: 3-point scale of valence (N=neutral, H=happy, UH=unhappy).

1 N UH UH H H H H H
2 N H H H H N H N
3 N H UH H UH N H H
4 H H N N H H N N
5 H H H H H H H H
6 UH UH N UH H N UH H
7 N N N H H N H H
8 N H H H H H H H
9 N N N N H H H H
10 H H H H H H H H
11 H N UH H H UH UH H
12 H H N H H UH UH N
13 H H H H H UH UH N
14 N H H H H H H H
15 N H H H H H H H
4.4 One-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA)
One-way ANOVA was conducted to determine if the change detected in HR, SC, arousal and
valence was significant. One-way ANOVA examines the difference between groups that are
classified by one independent variable.
First one-way ANOVA was conducted on HR results. That was done by entering the mean
HR values to MINITAB software. Mean HR under white light was chosen as the base and one-
way ANOVA test was run on the data. The results are tabulated and shown in Table 4.12. DF in
the table denotes the degrees of freedom; it refers to the number of independent observations
that are calculated in the sum of squares. SS denotes sum of squares, which tells how much
of the total variability is explained by the experimental effect. MS represents the mean square,
which is sum of squares (SS) divided by its associated degrees of freedom (DF). P-value is the
significance level.
The same steps as above were followed to run one-way ANOVA on SC values. The results
are tabulated and shown in Table 4.13.
It is observed from Table 4.12 & Table 4.13 that the p-value is very high under all colour
lights. This means that the variation in HR and SC in response to the change in the colour and
Table 4.12: One-way ANOVA for HR
Coloured light DF SS MS F P
Blue-low 1 24.2 24.2 0.60 0.44
Blue-high 1 5.3 5.3 0.12 0.73
Green-low 1 0.1 0.1 0.00 0.97
Green-high 1 2.0 2.0 0.05 0.83
Red-low 1 0.3 0.3 0.01 0.93
Red-high 1 14.0 14.0 0.34 0.57
Natural 1 50.3 50.3 1.08 0.31
Table 4.13: One-way ANOVA for SC
Blue-low 1 67 67 0.17 0.69
Blue-high 1 184 184 0.46 0.51
Green-low 1 522 522 1.10 0.30
Green-high 1 824 824 1.36 0.25
Red-low 1 697 697 1.13 0.26
Red-high 1 438 438 0.85 0.37
Natural 1 696 696 1.38 0.25
intensity of light is not significant when considering all participants under each coloured light.
The one-way ANOVA results for arousal and valence were also tabulated and are shown in
Table 4.14 & Table 4.15.
It is observed from Table 4.14 that the p-value was very high under all coloured lights except
for red high light where p=0.04. This means that the change in arousal in response to the change
in the colour and intensity of light is significant when considering the average arousal effect off
all participants under red high light. However it is not significant under all other colour lights.
It is observed from Table 4.15 that the p-value was very high under all coloured lights except
for green high light where p=0.03. This again means that the change in valence in response
to the change in the colour and intensity of light is significant when considering the average
valence effect off all participants under green high light. However it is not significant under all
other colour lights.

Table 4.14: One-way ANOVA for arousal
Blue-low 1 1.20 1.20 0.27 0.61
Blue-high 1 9.63 9.63 2.05 0.16
Green-low 1 0.53 0.53 0.13 0.72
Green-high 1 4.80 4.80 1.43 0.24
Red-low 1 7.50 7.50 2.42 0.13
Red-high 1 16.13 16.13 4.46 0.04
Natural 1 1.20 1.20 0.20 0.66
Table 4.15: One-way ANOVA for valence
Blue-low 1 0.13 0.13 0.04 0.84
Blue-high 1 1.20 1.20 0.48 0.50
Green-low 1 3.33 3.33 1.54 0.23
Green-high 1 12.03 12.03 5.06 0.03
Red-low 1 0.13 0.13 0.04 0.83
Red-high 1 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.00
Natural 1 9.63 9.63 3.56 0.07
4.5 Two-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA)
Two-way ANOVA was conducted to determine if the change in HR, SC, arousal and valence are
significant when considering each participant separately. Two-way ANOVA is used to analyse
the effect of two factors on one dependent variable. The two factors considered were person
and colour. The variable was HR, SC, arousal or valence. When considering person as a factor,
the significance of the variable was tested for each participant separately. When considering
colour as a factor, the significance of the variable was tested for all participants under a certain
colour and intensity light.
Two-way ANOVA test was conducted by entering the mean HR, SC, arousal and valence
data in MINITAB software. The two factors were chosen then the test was run on each set of
data (HR, SC, arousal and valence). The results for each set of data were then tabulated. The
results for two-way ANOVA for HR and SC are shown in Table 4.16,Table 4.17.
It is observed from Tables 4.16 & 4.17 that although the change in mean HR and SC was
not significant when considering all participants under each colour light, it was very significant
when considering each participant separately.
Table 4.16: Two-way ANOVA for HR
Factor DF SS MS F P
Person 14 2564 183.1 8.52 0.00
Colour 7 190.8 27.26 1.27 0.27
Table 4.17: Two-way ANOVA for SC
Factor DF SS MS F P
Person 14 51702 3693 19.53 0.00
Colour 7 1452.7 207.5 1.10 0.37
The results of two-way ANOVA for arousal and valence data are shown in in Tables 4.18 &
4.19.
It is observed from Tables 4.18 & 4.19 that the change in arousal and valence is significant
when considering the change of all subjects under each colour light and when considering the
change for each participant separately.
Table 4.18: Two-way ANOVA for arousal
Factor DF SS MS F P
Person 14 203.3 14.52 4.33 0.00
Colour 7 71.2 10.17 3.04 0.01
Table 4.19: Two-way ANOVA for valence
Factor DF SS MS F P
Person 14 99.22 7.09 3.30 0.00
Colour 7 39.60 5.66 2.63 0.02
CHAPTER 5
Discussion
T
his research is built on the current body of knowledge that physiological and psycho-
logical measures are necessary to measure the effect of light intensity and colour on
space users. The thesis reports changes in HR and SC and SAM of participants when exposed
to different colour and intensity lightings for periods of time that allows them to adapt to the
conditions.
Observation 1: It is observed from Table 4.2 that there is variation in HR under different
colour and intensity lights.
Discussion 1: It is well documented in literature that there is a close correlation between

HR and emotion. This observation directly confirms that change of colour and intensity of lights
in the space causes a change in the HR which is due to the change in the emotions and the
performance of people.
Observation 2: It is observed from Table 4.2 that the inter subject variation in HR is very
high.
Discussion 2: This demonstrates that people have different HR under normal conditions,
which makes it difficult to compare their HR. This is the reason why HR data needs to be
normalized.
31
Chapter 5. Discussion 32
Observation 3: It is observed from Table 4.3 & Table 4.4 that the magnitude of heart
rate variability (HRV) was also subject dependent.
Discussion 3: It is well documented in literature that HRV is a good measure of emotions.

This observation demonstrates that HRV is not a good measure of the effect of a stimulus on a
group of people because the magnitude of change in HRV differs between people, which make
it difficult to compare their HRV.
Observation 4: The direction of change in HR (increase or decrease) is subject depen-

dent, where the same colour and intensity light can cause and increase in HR for some subjects
and a decrease in HR for others.
Discussion 4: This observation demonstrates that it is not possible to correlate the colour
and lighting conditions to a specific effect on all participants. This confirms what Veitch reported
that successful lighting in one condition might prove impractical in another because of a number
of constrains that include individual differences [19].
Observation 5: Some colour and intensity conditions caused greater changes in HR than
others. Red-high light caused the greatest impact on the HR of participants where it caused the
largest increase in HR of 20% of the participants and the largest decrease in HR of 20% of the
participants. Blue-low and natural lights also caused a large impact on the HR of participant.
Discussion 5: This observation demonstrates that some colour and intensity lights have
greater impact on emotions than others. HR results show that Red-light had the greatest impact
on the emotions of participants.
Observation 6: It is observed from Table 4.5 that there is a change in SC of participants

when they are exposed to different colour and intensity lights.
Discussion 6: It is well documented in literature that there is a close correlation between

SC and emotion. This observation directly confirms that the change in the colour and intensity
of lights in the space causes a change in SC which is due to the change in the emotions and
performance of users.
Observation 7: It is observed from Table 4.5 that the inter subject variation in SC is very
high.
Discussion 7: This demonstrates that people have different SC under normal conditions,
which makes it difficult to compare their SC. This is the reason why SC data needs to be
normalized.
Observation 8: It is observed from Table 4.6 & Table 4.7 that the change in SC was also
subject dependent where the magnitude of change in SC differs between people.
Discussion 8: This demonstrates that it is difficult to use SC as a measure of the effect

of a stimulus on a group of people because the inter subject variation is very high.
Observation 9: It is observed that the direction of change in SC (increase or decrease)

is subject dependent.
Discussion 9: This observation again proves (as mentioned in discussion 2) that it is

not possible to correlate the colour and lighting condition to a specific effect on all participants.
This is because the same colour and lighting condition can have different emotional effects on
different people.
Observation 10: 60 -73% of the non-White conditions caused higher SC than White
conditions.
Discussion 10: In most experiments (2/3 of the experiments) White light caused the
lowest SC. Since SC is associated with the arousal of the participants, White light caused the
most relaxing conditions for most participants.
Observation 11: Some colour and intensity lights caused greater changes in SC than
others. Natural light caused the greatest impact on SC of participants. Green-high light and
Red-high light also caused a big impact on the SC of participants.
Discussion 11: This observation again demonstrates that some colour lights affect emo-
tions more than others. From observations 2 and 6 it is observed that Natural light and Red-high
light caused the greatest impact on the HR and SC of participants, therefore they were the most
mood inducing conditions.
Observation 12: It is observed from Table 4.8 & Table 4.10 that there is a change in
arousal and valence rating under different colour and intensity lights.
Discussion 12: The above observation demonstrates that the lighting colour and intensity
of the space affects the arousal and valence of the users. Arousals shows how excited or relaxed
the participants are, valence shows how happy or unhappy they are, therefore the above confirms
that light and colour affect the mood and performance of the space users.
Observation 13: It is observed from Table 4.8 & Table 4.10 that the changes in the
arousal and valence of participants were subject dependent.
Discussion 13: This observation confirms what has been demonstrated in discussions
3 and 5 that it is not possible to correlate the colour and lighting condition to a specific effect
on all participants. This is because the same colour and lighting condition can have different
arousal and valence effects on different people.
Observation 14: It is observed from Table 4.9 that although changes in arousal were
subject dependent, general effects for some colour lights were seen. White light caused a neutral
effect on 67% of participants; Blue-low light caused a relaxing condition for 60% of participant
and Blue-high light caused that effect for 73% of participants. Red-low light caused an exciting
effect for 53% of participants and Red-high light caused that effect for 60% of participants.
Discussion 14: Although it is difficult to correlate colour and lighting conditions to a

specific effect on all participants, some general effects were drawn from the results. White
light caused a neutral effect for 67% of the participants, Blue-lights caused a relaxing effect for
60-73% of participants and Red-lights caused an exciting effect for 53-60% of participants.
Observation 15: It is observed from Table 4.11 that all colour lights caused a happy
or neutral effect on most participants. Green-high light caused the largest pleasant effect; it
caused a happy effect for 93% of participants. Green-low light caused the same effect for 80%
of participants while natural light caused that effect for 73% of participants. The most unpleasant
effects were seen under Red-high light, which caused an unhappy effect on 26% of participants,
Blue-high and Red-low caused that effect on 20% of participants.
Discussion 15: Although it is not possible to correlate the colour and lighting conditions
to a specific effect on all participants, some general effects were drawn from the results. Green
lights caused the most pleasant effects where they had a happy effect on a large number of
participants (80-93%) and Natural light caused the same effect for 73% of the participants. The
observed unpleasant effects were less correlated and the most unpleasant effects recorded were
under red lights that caused an unhappy effect on 20-26% of the participants.
Observation 16: From Table 4.16 & Table 4.17 it is observed that the changes in HR
and SC are not significant when considering all participants under each colour and intensity
light due to the large inter subject variation; however the changes are very significant when
considering each participant individually.
Discussion 16: This confirms that people have different HR and SC in normal conditions.
This makes the use of HR and SC to measure the effect of a stimulus on a group of people
is unreliable because it is difficult to compare the results as the inter subject variation will be
very high. This observation also demonstrates that although the colour and lighting conditions
had different effects on participants, they caused a significant change in HR and SC of all
participants. This confirms that colour and intensity of light has a significant effect on peoples
emotions.
Observation 17: It is observed from Table 4.18 & Table 4.19 that the change in arousal
and valence is significant when considering the change of all subjects and each subject sepa-
rately.
Discussion 17: This observation demonstrates that although the colour and lighting con-
ditions have different effects on participants, there was a significant change in arousal and
valence for all participants in response to change in the colour and lighting conditions. This
confirms that colour and lighting conditions cause a significant change in emotions of people.
Observation 18: It is observed from the results that there is no correlation between the
physiological measures (HR and SC) and the psychological measures (valence and arousal).
Discussion 18: It is reported in literature that HR is related to valence and SC is a useful

measure of arousal [21]. However the results of this study show no co-relation between the
physiological measures (HR and SC) and the psychological measures (valence and arousal).
This could be due to a number of reasons.
Bradley et.al. reports that different measures differ greatly in sensitivity and dynamic range.
While evaluation language has enormous sensitivity and extension, autonomically mediated
responses (e.g., heart rate and skin conductance) vary little with stimulus changes that are
rated in the lower range of affective intensities [21]. The difference in the sensitivity of the
measures could be the reason for not finding co-relation between physiological and psychological
measures.
It is also reported by Detenber et.al. that self reports and physiological measures tap different
systems and index different facets of emotion. Though they are often correlated, they do not
necessarily need to be. An example of that would be some phobics who report extremely high
levels of emotion when confronted with the object of their fears or asked to imagine it, yet their
physiological responses do not reflect the terror they experience [1]. While physiological and
psychological measures should generally converge, situations exist where they do not. The
results of this study represent one of these situations.
Another possible reason for the difference seen in the physiological and psychological mea-
sures is people believing that lights and colours affect them in certain ways. These beliefs could
be influenced by culture or social context. However the impact of these beliefs might be limited
to the conscious experience of emotion (i.e. self reports).
5.1 Summary of Discussion
This research demonstrates that there is a change in the physiological measures (HR and SC)
due to change in the colour and intensity of lights in the space. However the change is subject
dependent, which makes it difficult to correlate the colour and lighting conditions to a specific
effect on all participants. This means that it is difficult to predict a specific effect for the colour
and light of the space on all the users, therefore to study the effect of colour and light in the
space the individual differences of users must be taken into account. This directly confirms what
Veitch et.al. reported that successful lighting in one situation might prove impractical in another
because of a number of constrains, one of them is individual differences [19].
It was also seen that some colour and intensity lights has a greater impact on HR and SC
than others. Natural light and Red-high light caused the greatest impact on SC and HR. SC
results show that White light caused the most relaxing condition for 60-73% of the participants.
Although it is well documented in literature that HR, HRV and SC are a good measure of
emotion, this research demonstrates that they are not a good measure of the emotions of a
group of people. The inter subject variation in HR, HRV and SC is very high which makes their
use to measure the effect of a stimulus on a group of people unreliable because it is difficult to
compare the results.
The subjective tests demonstrate that there was a change in arousal and valence due to
change in colour and intensity of lights in the space; however the change was again subject
dependent. It is also seen that some colour and intensity lights had a greater impact on the
arousal and valence of participants than others.
Although it is difficult to correlate the colour and lighting conditions to a specific effect on all
users, some general effects were drawn from the arousal and valence results. White light caused
a neutral effect for 67% of the participants; Blue lights caused a relaxing effect for 60-73% of
participants and Red lights caused an exciting effect for 53-60% of participants. Green lights
caused a pleasant effect on 80-93% of the participants; Natural light caused the same effect
for 73% of the participants. The most unpleasant effects recorded were under red lights, which
caused an unhappy effect on 20-26% of the participants.
It has been reported by Knez that the colour and type of lamp of indoor lighting may have
different emotional meaning to different age groups and gender [47]. However, Valdez et.al.
report that emotional reactions to colour were similar for men and women [24]. The impact of
light and colour on different age groups and gender are not taken into account in this research.
Veitch reported that in studies with long adaptation time, there might be no relationship
between illumination and performance [19]. This might suggest that with longer exposure to
lights there would not be a relationship between illumination and emotions. This research studies
the impact of light and colour on people when they are exposed to each condition for 10 minutes;
preliminary experiments demonstrated that this time was sufficient to allow participants to adapt
to the conditions. It is recommended that further research would study the effect of longer
exposure to light and colour.
Further research is also recommended to study the relation ship between colour preferences
of space users and the effect of colour and light on them, also studying a larger sample might
help in finding general effects for some colours.

CHAPTER 6
Conclusion
T
his research studies the emotional effects of the colour and intensity of lights on space
users. It is reported in literature that emotion manifests itself in three separate sections
(i) physiological (i.e. objective measures), (ii) psychological (i.e. subjective experience) and
(iii) behavioural, and it is necessary that studies not be limited to the assessment of a single
response. Therefore it was important to take both objective and subjective measures into account
when measuring the emotional effects of light and colour on people. This research reports the
changes in physiological measures (HR and SC) and psychological measures (SAM) due to
change in the colour and intensity of lights in the space.
The experiments were conducted on 15 participants that were exposed to 8 different colour
and intensity lights. Their SC and HR were recorded during the experiment and they were asked
to complete SAM after being exposed to each colour and intensity light.
This research demonstrates that there is a change in the physiological measures (HR and
SC) due to change in the colour and intensity of lights in the space. However the changes
are subject dependent, which makes it hard to correlate the colour and lighting conditions to
a specific effect on all participants. This means that it is hard to predict a specific effect for
colour and lighting of the space on all the users. The research suggests that architects and
designers of any space must take into account the individual differences of the predicted users
when designing the colours and lights.
The results also demonstrate that some colour and intensity lights had a greater impact on
39
Chapter 6. Conclusion 40
HR and SC than others. Natural light and Red-high light caused the greatest impact on SC
and HR. SC results show that White light caused the most relaxing condition for 60-73% of the
participants.
Although it is well documented in literature that HR, HRV and SC are a good measure of
emotion, this research demonstrates that they are not a good measure of the emotions of a
group of people. The inter subject variation in HR, HRV and SC is very high which makes their
use to measure the effect of a stimulus on a group of people unreliable because it is hard to
compare the results.
The psychological tests demonstrate that there was a change in arousal and valence due to
change in colour and intensity of lights in the space; however the changes are subject dependent.
It is also seen that some colour and intensity lights had a greater impact on the arousal and
valence of participants than others.
It is also observed from the results that there is no co-relation between the physiological and
psychological measures.
Although it is hard to correlate the colour and lighting conditions to a specific effect on all
users, some general effects are drawn from the results. White light caused a neutral effect for
73% of the participants; Blue lights caused a relaxing effect for 60-73% of participants and Red
lights caused an exciting effect for 53-60% of participants. Green lights caused a pleasant effect
on 80-93% of the participants; Natural light caused the same effect for 73% of the participants.
The most unpleasant effects recorded were under red lights, which caused an unhappy effect
on 20-26% of the participants.
Future research: It is recommended that future research would study the following:
1. The impact of light and colour on different age groups and gender.
2. The effect of longer exposure to light and colour.
3. The relationship between colour preferences of space users and the effect of colour and
light on them.
4. Study a larger sample, which might help in finding general effects for some colours.
APPENDIX A
ECG Recordings
41
APPENDIX A. ECG RECORDINGS 42
0.2 0.25
0.15 0.2
0.1 0.15
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0.05 0.1
0 0.05
0.05 0
0.1 0.05
0.15 0.1
460 480 500 520 540 560 580 600 520 540 560 580 600 620 640 660
Time/sec Time/sec
(a) White light (b) Blue-low light

0.2 0.2
0.15 0.15
0.1 0.1
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0.05 0.05
0 0
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500 520 540 560 580 600 620 520 540 560 580 600 620 640 660
Time/sec Time/sec
(c) Blue-high light (d) Green-low light
Figure A.1: Participant 1 - ECG Recordings for participant 1 for all colour lights
0.2 0.2
0.15 0.15
0.1 0.1
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0.05 0.05
0 0
0.05 0.05
0.1 0.1
0.15 0.15
460 480 500 520 540 560 580 600 620 380 400 420 440 460 480 500 520 540 560
Time/sec Time/sec
(e) Green-high light (f) Red-low light

0.2 0.2
0.15 0.15
0.1 0.1
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Voltage/volts
0.05 0.05
0 0
0.05 0.05
0.1 0.1
0.15 0.15
500 520 540 560 580 600 620 640 480 500 520 540 560 580 600 620 640
Time/sec Time/sec
(g) Red-hig light (h) Natural light
0.4 0.4
0.3 0.3
0.2 0.2
0.1 0.1
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0 0
0.1 0.1
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0.4 0.4
0.5 0.5
460 480 500 520 540 560 580 600 460 480 500 520 540 560 580 600
Time/sec Time/sec

0.4 0.4
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0.2
0.2
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0.1
0
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0
0.1
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500 550 600 650 460 480 500 520 540 560 580 600 620
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0.2 0.2
0.1 0.1
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Voltage/volts
0 0
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0.5 0.5
460 480 500 520 540 560 580 600 480 500 520 540 560 580 600 620
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0 0
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460 480 500 520 540 560 580 600 620 460 480 500 520 540 560 580 600 620
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0.25 0.25
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0 0
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500 520 540 560 580 600 620 640 660 440 460 480 500 520 540 560 580
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0.25 0.3
0.2 0.25
0.2
0.15
0.15
0.1
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0.05
0.05
0
0
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440 460 480 500 520 540 560 580 620 640 660 680 700 720 740 760 780
Time/sec Time/sec
0.3 0.25
0.25 0.2
0.2
0.15
0.15
0.1
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0.1
0.05
0.05
0
0
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460 480 500 520 540 560 580 600 620 520 540 560 580 600 620 640 660 680
Time/sec Time/sec

0.5 0.5
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0.2 0.2
0.1 0.1
0 0
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460 480 500 520 540 560 580 600 620 480 500 520 540 560 580 600 620 640
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0.3 0.3
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780 800 820 840 860 880 900 920 480 500 520 540 560 580 600 620
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520 540 560 580 600 620 640 660 680 700 520 540 560 580 600 620 640 660 680
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0.3 0.25
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0
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480 500 520 540 560 580 600 620 640 660 500 520 540 560 580 600 620 640
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0.4 0.4
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0 0
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500 550 600 650 460 480 500 520 540 560 580 600 620
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480 500 520 540 560 580 600 620 640 500 520 540 560 580 600 620 640
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520 540 560 580 600 620 640 660 560 580 600 620 640 660 680 700 720
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0 0
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460 480 500 520 540 560 580 600 620 520 540 560 580 600 620 640 660
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0.6 0.6
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0 0
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500 520 540 560 580 600 620 640 460 480 500 520 540 560 580 600 620
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0 0
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620 640 660 680 700 720 740 760 500 520 540 560 580 600 620 640
Time/sec Time/sec

0.3 0.3
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Voltage/volts
0 0
0.1 0.1
0.2 0.2
0.3 0.3
0.4 0.4
540 560 580 600 620 640 660 680 500 520 540 560 580 600 620 640 660
Time/sec Time/sec
0.3 0.3
0.2 0.2
0.1 0.1
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0 0
0.1 0.1
0.2 0.2
0.3 0.3
0.4 0.4
480 500 520 540 560 580 600 620 640 500 520 540 560 580 600 620 640 660
Time/sec Time/sec

0.3 0.3
0.2 0.2
0.1 0.1
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0 0
0.1 0.1
0.2 0.2
0.3 0.3
0.4 0.4
720 740 760 780 800 820 840 860 880 480 500 520 540 560 580 600 620 640
Time/sec Time/sec
0.5 0.5
0.4
0.4
0.3
0.3
0.2
0.2
0.1
0.1
0
0
0.1
0.1
0.2
0.3 0.2
20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 460 480 500 520 540 560 580 600 620

0.5 0.5
0.4
0.4
0.3
0.3
0.2
0.2
0.1
0.1
0
0
0.1
0.1
0.2
0.3 0.2
540 560 580 600 620 640 660 680 460 480 500 520 540 560 580 600 620
0.5 0.3
0.25
0.4
0.2
0.3
0.15
0.1
0.2
0.05
0.1
0
0.05
0
0.1
0.1
0.15
0.2 0.2
500 520 540 560 580 600 620 640 500 520 540 560 580 600 620 640

1.2 0.3
1 0.25
0.8 0.2
0.6 0.15
0.4 0.1
0.2 0.05
0 0
0.2 0.05
0.4 0.1
0.6 0.15
0.8 0.2
480 500 520 540 560 580 600 620 460 480 500 520 540 560 580 600 620
0.2 0.2
0.15 0.15
0.1 0.1
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0.05 0.05
0 0
0.05 0.05
0.1 0.1
0.15 0.15
540 560 580 600 620 640 660 680 460 480 500 520 540 560 580 600 620
Time/sec Time/sec

0.25 0.2
0.2
0.15
0.15
0.1
0.1
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0.05
0.05
0
0
0.05
0.05
0.1
0.1
0.15 0.15
460 480 500 520 540 560 580 600 620 460 480 500 520 540 560 580 600
Time/sec Time/sec
0.3 0.25
0.25
0.2
0.2
0.15
0.15
0.1
0.1
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0.05 0.05
0
0
0.05
0.05
0.1
0.1
0.15
0.2 0.15
520 540 560 580 600 620 640 660 680 480 500 520 540 560 580 600 620 640
Time/sec Time/sec

0.3 0.25
0.25
0.2
0.2
0.15
0.15
0.1
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0.1
0.05
0.05
0
0.05
0
0.1
0.05
0.15
0.2 0.1
480 500 520 540 560 580 600 620 640 660 440 460 480 500 520 540 560 580 600
Time/sec Time/sec
1 1
0.8 0.8
0.6 0.6
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0.4 0.4
0.2 0.2
0 0
0.2 0.2
0.4 0.4
560 580 600 620 640 660 680 700 520 540 560 580 600 620 640 660
Time/sec Time/sec

1 0.8
0.8 0.6
0.6 0.4
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0.4 0.2
0.2 0
0 0.2
0.2 0.4
0.4 0.6
480 500 520 540 560 580 600 550 600 650 700
Time/sec Time/sec
0.8 0.8
0.6 0.6
0.4 0.4
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0.2 0.2
0 0
0.2 0.2
0.4 0.4
0.6 0.6
480 500 520 540 560 580 600 620 640 500 520 540 560 580 600 620 640
Time/sec Time/sec

0.8 0.8
0.6
0.6
0.4
0.4
0.2
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0.2
0
0.2
0.2
0.4
0.4
0.6
0.6 0.8
680 700 720 740 760 780 800 820 460 480 500 520 540 560 580 600 620
Time/sec Time/sec
0.8 0.8
0.6 0.6
0.4 0.4
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0.2 0.2
0 0
0.2 0.2
0.4 0.4
0.6 0.6
480 500 520 540 560 580 600 620 460 480 500 520 540 560 580 600 620
Time/sec Time/sec

0.6 0.8
0.4 0.6
0.2 0.4
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0 0.2
0.2 0
0.4 0.2
0.6 0.4
0.8 0.6
420 440 460 480 500 520 540 560 580 440 460 480 500 520 540 560 580
Time/sec Time/sec
0.6 0.8
0.4 0.6
0.2 0.4
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0 0.2
0.2 0
0.4 0.2
0.6 0.4
0.8 0.6
460 480 500 520 540 560 580 600 460 480 500 520 540 560 580 600 620
Time/sec Time/sec

0.6 0.8
0.4 0.6
0.2 0.4
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0 0.2
0.2 0
0.4 0.2
0.6 0.4
0.8 0.6
460 480 500 520 540 560 580 600 460 480 500 520 540 560 580 600 620
Time/sec Time/sec
0.4 0.5
0.4
0.3
0.3
0.2
0.2
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0.1
0.1
0
0
0.1
0.1
0.2
0.2
0.3
0.3 0.4
620 640 660 680 700 720 740 760 780 520 540 560 580 600 620 640 660 680
Time/sec Time/sec

0.5 0.5
0.4 0.4
0.3 0.3
0.2 0.2
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0.1 0.1
0 0
0.1 0.1
0.2 0.2
0.3 0.3
500 520 540 560 580 600 620 640 580 600 620 640 660 680 700 720 740
Time/sec Time/sec
0.5 0.5
0.4 0.4
0.3 0.3
0.2 0.2
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0.1 0.1
0 0
0.1 0.1
0.2 0.2
0.3 0.3
520 540 560 580 600 620 640 660 680 460 480 500 520 540 560 580 600 620
Time/sec Time/sec

0.5 0.5
0.4 0.4
0.3 0.3
0.2 0.2
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0.1 0.1
0 0
0.1 0.1
0.2 0.2
0.3 0.3
0.4 0.4
500 520 540 560 580 600 620 640 660 600 620 640 660 680 700 720 740 760
Time/sec Time/sec
0.5 0.5
0.4 0.4
0.3 0.3
0.2 0.2
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0.1 0.1
0 0
0.1 0.1
0.2 0.2
0.3 0.3
0.4 0.4
480 500 520 540 560 580 600 620 640 500 520 540 560 580 600 620 640 660
Time/sec Time/sec

0.6 0.5
0.5 0.4
0.4
0.3
0.3
0.2
0.2
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0.1
0.1
0
0
0.1
0.1
0.2
0.2
0.3 0.3
0.4 0.4
520 540 560 580 600 620 640 660 680 700 500 550 600 650
Time/sec Time/sec
0.5 0.5
0.4 0.4
0.3
0.3
0.2
0.2
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0.1
0.1
0
0
0.1
0.1
0.2
0.3 0.2
0.4 0.3
520 540 560 580 600 620 640 660 680 700 550 600 650 700
Time/sec Time/sec

0.5 0.5
0.4 0.4
0.3 0.3
0.2 0.2
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0.1 0.1
0 0
0.1 0.1
0.2 0.2
0.3 0.3
0.4 0.4
500 550 600 650 480 500 520 540 560 580 600 620 640
Time/sec Time/sec
1 1
0.8 0.8
0.6 0.6
0.4 0.4
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0.2 0.2
0 0
0.2 0.2
0.4 0.4
0.6 0.6
640 660 680 700 720 740 760 780 520 540 560 580 600 620 640 660 680
Time/sec Time/sec

0.8 1
0.8
0.6
0.6
0.4
0.4
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0.2
0.2
0
0
0.2
0.2
0.4
0.4
0.6 0.6
550 600 650 700 580 600 620 640 660 680 700 720 740
Time/sec Time/sec
1 1
0.8 0.8
0.6 0.6
0.4 0.4
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0.2 0.2
0 0
0.2 0.2
0.4 0.4
0.6 0.6
500 520 540 560 580 600 620 640 520 540 560 580 600 620 640 660
Time/sec Time/sec

0.8 0.8
0.6 0.6
0.4 0.4
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0.2 0.2
0 0
0.2 0.2
0.4 0.4
0.6 0.6
500 520 540 560 580 600 620 640 660 680 600 650 700 750
Time/sec Time/sec
0.3 0.3
0.25 0.25
0.2
0.2
0.15
0.15
0.1
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0.1
0.05
0.05
0
0
0.05
0.05
0.1
0.15 0.1
0.2 0.15
740 760 780 800 820 840 860 880 500 550 600 650
Time/sec Time/sec

0.3 0.5
0.25
0.4
0.2
0.3
0.15
0.1
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0.2
0.05
0.1
0
0.05
0
0.1
0.1
0.15
0.2 0.2
460 480 500 520 540 560 580 600 500 550 600 650
Time/sec Time/sec
0.5 0.3
0.25
0.4
0.2
0.3
0.15
0.1
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0.2
0.05
0.1
0
0.05
0
0.1
0.1
0.15
0.2 0.2
550 600 650 700 500 520 540 560 580 600 620 640
Time/sec Time/sec

0.3 0.3
0.25 0.25
0.2
0.2
0.15
0.15
0.1
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0.1
0.05
0.05
0
0
0.05
0.05
0.1
0.1 0.15
0.15 0.2
500 520 540 560 580 600 620 640 500 520 540 560 580 600 620 640
Time/sec Time/sec
0.5 0.5
0.4 0.4
0.3 0.3
0.2 0.2
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0.1 0.1
0 0
0.1 0.1
0.2 0.2
0.3 0.3
0.4 0.4
620 640 660 680 700 720 740 760 520 540 560 580 600 620 640 660 680
Time/sec Time/sec

0.6 0.5
0.5 0.4
0.4
0.3
0.3
0.2
0.2
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0.1
0.1
0
0
0.1
0.1
0.2
0.2
0.3 0.3
0.4 0.4
500 550 600 650 500 520 540 560 580 600 620 640 660
Time/sec Time/sec
0.5 0.5
0.4 0.4
0.3
0.3
0.2
0.2
0.1
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0.1
0
0
0.1
0.1
0.2
0.2
0.3
0.4 0.3
0.5 0.4
520 540 560 580 600 620 640 660 520 540 560 580 600 620 640 660
Time/sec Time/sec

0.6 0.6
0.5
0.4
0.4
0.2
0.3
0.2
Voltage/volts
Voltage/volts
0.1
0.2
0
0.1
0.4
0.2
0.6
0.3
0.4 0.8
500 520 540 560 580 600 620 640 580 600 620 640 660 680 700 720 740
Time/sec Time/sec
APPENDIX B
SC Recordings
72
APPENDIX B. SC RECORDINGS 73
11
24
White
Natural 10
22 Red high
Blue low

Green low 9
Blue high
Conductance, 1/OHM
20
Red low White
8
18
Green low Natural
7
Blue high
Green high
16
6
Red high
Red low
Blue low green high
14 5
4
12 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 4
4 Samples x 10
x 10
Samples
(a) Participant 1 (b) Participant 2

100
Green low
90
Green high
80
70
red low
60
Natural
50
40
30 Red high
Blue low Blue high
White
20
10
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5
4
x 10
Samples
(c) Participant 3
Figure B.1: SC for each participant under all colour lights

50 17
Natural
16
red high
52
15

Red low Blue low
14 Green high
Green high
54
13 Blue high White

Red high
Green low
56 12
11
58 Blue high
10
Green low
9
60 Red low
White
Blue low
8
Natural
62 7
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
4 4
x 10 x 10
Samples Samples

45
Green low
40
35
30
blue high
25 Natural
Red high
20
Red low
Green high
15
Blue low
White
10
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
4
x 10
Samples
(c) Participant 6

110 100
Red high Red low

100 Natural
90
Natural Red high Blue high

90
80 Green high
80
White
Red low 70
Blue high
70
Blue low 60
60
50
50
Green low
40
40
Green low Blue low

30 30
Green high White
20 20
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5
4 4
x 10 x 10
Samples Samples

60
Red high
55
Green low
50
45
Green high
40
35
Natural
30 Red low
White
25
20 Blue high
Blue low
15
10
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
4
x 10
Samples
(c) Participant 9

13 80
12 75
Natural
Red low

70
11 Green low
Green high
65
10 Blue low
60 Red high
Green low
9
Red low 55
8
50 Natural
Red high
7 White Blue high
Blue low Blue high 45
White
6 40
Green high
5 35
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5
4 4
x 10 x 10
Samples Samples

55
50
45 Red high
40
Green low
35 Green high
Red low Natural

30 Blue high
Blue low
25 White
20
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5
4
x 10
Samples
(c) Participant 12

90 8.5
80 Blue low
8

Red low
70
7.5
Green high
Blue high
60
White
7 Blue low
50 Red high
White 6.5
Green low
40 Natural
Blue high
Red low 6
30
Red high Natural
Green high
Green low
20 5.5
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
4 4
x 10 x 10
Samples Samples

12.5
12
Red low
Green high
11.5
11
Red high
10.5 Natural
Green low
10
Blue low
9.5
Blue high
9
8.5
White
8
7.5
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
4
x 10
Samples
(c) Participant 15

APPENDIX C
HR Charts
78
APPENDIX C. HR CHARTS 79
Subject 1 Subject 2
2
Bluelow 0
12 White
2
10
Greenhigh
Colour of lights
8 Redlow
Greenhigh
6
Greenlow
6 Bluehigh
Greenlow Bluehigh Natural
8
Redlow
4
10
Redhigh
Redhigh
2
12
White
Bluelow
Natural
0 14
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Colour of lights Change in HR (beats/min)

Subject 3
10
Redhigh
8
6
Bluehigh Redlow
4
Greenlow
2
Bluelow
White Greenhigh Natural
0
10
12
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Colour of lights
(c) Participant 3
Figure C.1: Change in HR for each participant under all colour lights
Subject 4 Subject 5
12 5
Bluelow
Greenlow 4
10
3
Bluehigh
2 Bluehigh
Redlow
8
1
Greenhigh
White Greenlow Redlow Redhigh Natural
6 0
Bluelow Natural
Greenhigh
1
4
2
3
Redhigh
2
White
0 5
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Colour of lights Colour of lights

Subject 6
12
10 Bluehigh
8
Redhigh
6 Bluelow
2
Greenhigh
White Greenlow Redlow Natural

0
6
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Colour of lights
(c) Participant 6
Subject 7 Subject 8
10 20
Redhigh 18 Greenlow
8
16
Redlow
6
14
12
4 Greenhigh
10 Bluelow
Natural
2
8
Redhigh
Bluehigh
Bluehigh
White Bluelow Greenlow Redlow Natural 6
0
2
2
Greenhigh
White
4 0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Subject 10
0
White
4 Bluehigh
6 Redlow
8
Bluelow
Redhigh
10
Greenhigh
12
Natural
14
16
Greenlow
18
20
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Colour of lights
(c) Participant 9
Sunject 10 Subject 11
8 8
Natural
6 Greenhigh
6
4 Redlow
4 Redlow
2
Redhigh
White Bluelow Bluehigh Greenlow Natural
0
2
Bluehigh
2
Greenhigh
White Bluelow Greenlow Redhigh
0
4
6
2
4
10
6 12
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Subject 12
6
4 Redlow
Greenlow
Bluehigh
2
White Bluelow Greenhigh Redhigh Natural

0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Colour of lights
(c) Participant 12
Subject 13 Subject 14
12 0
Bluelow White
10
2
Greenhigh
8
Bluelow
4
6
Bluehigh Bluehigh
Greenlow
4 6 Natural
Redlow
Greenhigh
2
8
Redhigh
White Greenlow Redlow Natural
0
10
2 Redhigh
4 12
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Subject 15
12
10 Redhigh
8
Bluehigh
6
Greenhigh Redlow
2 Natural
Greenlow
White Bluelow
0
6
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Colour of lights
(c) Participant 15
APPENDIX D
SC Charts
84
APPENDIX D. SC CHARTS 85
Subject 1 Subject 2
2 2
Natural 1.5 Bluelow

1
White Bluelow Bluehigh Greenlow Greenhigh Redlow Redhigh 1

0
0.5
Change in SC (micr siemens)

1
White Bluehigh Greenlow Greenhigh Redlow Redhigh Natural
0
2
0.5
3
1
4
1.5
5
2
6 2.5
7 3
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Subject 3
90
Greenlow Greenhigh
80
70
60
50 Redlow
40
30
Natural
20
Bluelow Bluehigh
10
White Redhigh
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Colour of lights
(c) Participant 3
Figure D.1: Change in SC for each participant under all colour lights
Subject 4 Subject 5
2 4
Bluelow
Bluelow
White Bluehigh Greenlow Greenhigh Redlow Redhigh Natural
0 3
Greenhigh

2 2 Bluehigh
Greenlow
Redhigh
4 1
White Redlow Natural

6 0
8 1
10 2
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Subject 6
18
Greenlow
16
14
12
Natural
10 Bluehigh
8 Redhigh
Redlow
4
Greenhigh
2 Bluelow
White
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Colour of lights
(c) Participant 6
Subject 7 Subject 8
45 50
Natural Redlow Redhigh Natural
40 40
Greenhigh
35 30

30 20
Redlow
Redhigh
Bluehigh
25 10
Bluelow Bluehigh
White Bluelow Greenlow

20 0
Greenhigh
15 10
Greenlow
10 20
5 30
White
0 40
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Subject 9
20
Redhigh
15
Greenlow
10
Greenhigh
Natural
5 Redlow
White Bluelow Bluehigh

0
10
15
20
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Colour of lights
(c) Participant 9
6 25
Natural Redhigh
5
Redlow
20
Greenhigh
4

Greenlow Bluelow
15
3
Redlow
Greenlow
2 Redhigh Bluehigh
10
Natural
1
Bluehigh 5
White Bluelow Greenhigh
0
White
1 0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Subject 12
18
Redhigh
16
14
Greenhigh
12
Natural
Greenlow
Redlow
10
6 Bluehigh
4 Bluelow
White
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Colour of lights
(c) Participant 12
40 0.5
Bluelow
Redlow
Greenhigh
30 Bluelow Bluehigh Greenlow Redhigh Natural
White
Bluehigh 0

20
0.5
10
Natural 1
White Greenlow Greenhigh Redlow Redhigh
0
1.5
10
20 2
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Subject 15
4
Greenhigh
3.5
Redlow
Redhigh
3
2.5 Natural
Greenlow
2
Bluelow
1.5
Bluehigh
0.5
White
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Colour of lights
(c) Participant 15
APPENDIX E
Arousal Charts
90
APPENDIX E. AROUSAL CHARTS 91
Subject 1 Subject 2
4 5
Redhigh Natural Greenhigh

3 4
Redlow 3
2
Greenlow
Bluelow 2
1
1
Arousal rating
Arousal rating
White Bluehigh Greenlow Greenhigh
0
White Bluelow Bluehigh Redlow Redhigh Natural
0
1
1
2
2
3
3
4 4
5 5
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Subject 3
4
Redhigh
3
Greenhigh Redlow
2
Greenlow
1
Arousal rating
White Bluelow Bluehigh Natural

0
4
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Colour of lights
(c) Participant 3
Figure E.1: Arousal of each participant under all colour lights

Subject 4 Subject 5
3 5
Redhigh Natural
Bluelow Redlow 4
2
3
1
2
White Bluehigh Greenlow Greenhigh Redhigh Natural

0 Greenhigh Redlow
1
Arousal rating
Arousal rating
White Bluelow Bluehigh Greenlow
1 0
1
2
2
3
3
4
4
5 5
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Subject 6
2.5
Natural
2
1.5
Greenhigh
1
0.5
Arousal rating
White Bluelow Bluehigh Greenlow Redlow Redhigh

0
0.5
1.5
2.5
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Colour of lights
(c) Participant 6

Subject 7 Subject 8
4 2.5
Natural
3
Bluehigh Greenhigh Natural

2
2
1.5
Arousal rating
Arousal rating
White Bluelow Bluehigh Greenlow Greenhigh Redlow Redhigh
0
1
Bluelow Greenlow Redhigh
1
3
0.5
White Redlow
5 0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Subject 9
3
Greenhigh Redlow Redhigh Natural

2

0
Arousal rating
5
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Colour of lights
(c) Participant 9

4.5 4
White Bluehigh Greenlow Redlow Redhigh Natural

4 Redhigh
3
3.5 Redlow
2
Bluelow Greenhigh
3
1
Arousal rating
Arousal rating
2.5
White Bluelow Bluehigh Greenlow Greenhigh Natural
0
2
1
1.5
2
1
0.5 3
0 4
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Subject 12
2.5
Greenlow Redlow Redhigh

2
1.5
0.5
Arousal rating
White Bluelow Bluehigh Greenhigh Natural

0
0.5
1.5
2.5
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Colour of lights
(c) Participant 12

5 0
Greenhigh Redlow Redhigh
Bluelow 0.5
4
Greenlow 1
3 Natural
1.5
White Bluehigh
2
Arousal rating
Arousal rating
2
White Greenlow
Redhigh
1
2.5
Greenhigh Redlow Natural
0
3
1
3.5
2 4
Bluelow Bluehigh
3 4.5
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Subject 15
0
White Redhigh
0.5
1
Redlow
1.5
Arousal rating
2
Greenhigh
2.5
3
Bluelow Greenlow Natural
3.5
4
Bluehigh
4.5
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Colour of lights
(c) Participant 15

APPENDIX F
Valence Charts
96
APPENDIX F. VALENCE CHARTS 97
Subject 1 Subject 2
5 4.5
Greenhigh Natural Greenhigh

4 4
Redlow
3 3.5
Greenlow Redhigh
2 3
Valence rating
Valence rating
1 2.5
White Bluelow Bluehigh Greenlow Redhigh

0 2
1 1.5
Bluelow Bluehigh
2 1
3 0.5
White Redlow Natural

4 0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Subject 3
2.5
Bluelow Greenlow Redhigh Natural

2
1.5
1
Valence rating
0.5
White Bluehigh Greenhigh Redlow

0
0.5
1.5
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Colour of lights
(c) Participant 3
Figure F.1: Valence of each participant under all colour lights

Subject 4 Subject 5
2.5 4.5
Redhigh Natural
4
White Bluelow Greenhigh Redlow

2
3.5
1.5
Valence rating
Valence rating
2.5
White Bluelow Bluehigh Greenlow Greenhigh Redlow

2
1
1.5
1
0.5
0.5
Bluehigh Greenlow Redhigh Natural

0 0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Subject 6
2.5
Natural
2
1.5
Greenhigh
1
0.5
Valence rating
White Bluelow Bluehigh Greenlow Redlow Redhigh

0
0.5
1.5
2.5
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Colour of lights
(c) Participant 6

Subject 7 Subject 8
3.5 2.5
Natural
3
Greenlow Greenhigh Natural
2
2.5
Redhigh 1.5
Valence rating
Valence rating
2
1.5 Bluelow Bluehigh Redlow Redhigh

1
Greenlow Greenhigh
1
0.5
0.5
White Bluelow Bluehigh Redlow White

0 0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Subject 9
2.5
Greenhigh Redlow Redhigh Natural

2
1.5
Valence rating
0.5

0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Colour of lights
(c) Participant 9

4.5 5
Bluelow Bluehigh Greenlow Redlow Redhigh Natural Natural

White 4
4
3
3.5
Greenlow Greenhigh
2
Greenhigh
3
White
1
Valence rating
Valence rating
2.5
Bluelow Bluehigh Redlow Redhigh
0
2
1
1.5
2
1
3
0.5 4
0 5
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Subject 12
5
White Greenhigh
4
Bluelow Greenlow
2
Valence rating
Bluehigh Redlow Redhigh Natural

0
3
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Colour of lights
(c) Participant 12

5 2.5
Bluelow
4
Greenlow Greenhigh Redlow Redhigh
2
White
3
Bluehigh Greenlow Greenhigh

2
1.5
Valence rating
Valence rating
1
Bluelow Bluehigh Natural

Redlow Redhigh Natural 1
0
1
0.5
White
3 0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Subject 15
3.5
Greenhigh Natural
3
2.5
Greenlow Redhigh
Valence rating
1.5
Bluelow Bluehigh Redlow

1
0.5
White
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Colour of lights
(c) Participant 15

APPENDIX G
Plain Language Summary
Nadeen Abbas
School of Electrical & Computer Engineering,
RMIT University
Email: s3060446@student.rmit.edu.au
Dear Sir/Madam,
I would like to invite you to participate in an experiment aimed at investigating the psychological
and emotional effects of light intensity and colour on people. These experiments will be conducted
by myself, Nadeen Abbas, as part of my masters programme at the School of Electrical & Computer
Engineering, RMIT University. The research will be supervised by DR Dinesh Kant Kumar and DR
Neil Mclachlan at RMIT. The outcomes of this study are expected to address the architects choice
of light intensity and colour. This will help architects base their choices of light intensity and colour
on scientific facts which will improve the users performance in the space.
Research Title: The psychological and physiological effects of light and colour on space
users.
Description of experiments: You will be seated in a room, your heart rate and skin
conductance will be recorded as the light intensity and colour of the room changes. For skin
102
APPENDIX G. PLAIN LANGUAGE SUMMARY 103
conductance measurements, a single sensor strap will be placed around your two fingers.
For the heart rate measurements, surface-stick electrode pads will be palced on both your
wrists. All electrodes and sensors are approved for clinical use and are extremely safe.
The attendence period required will be 120 minutes.
Participation in the research is purely voluntary. You are welcome, and should, ask for
clarification at any time of any aspect that concerns you. You may withdraw consent to
participation and discontinue participation at any time. The names of participants will not
be recorded to ensure the privacy of data of all participants. The final report of this research
may be published in a journal and the participants will be referred to as subject 1, subject 2
etc. in the publication.
You are welcome to gain access to your data by contacting me.
Please find any contact details above for any queries or expressions of interest to participate
in this investigation.
Thank you for your consideration.
Nadeen Abbas
APPENDIX H
Participant Consent Form
RMIT HUMAN RESEARCH ETHICS COMMITTEE
Prescribed Consent Form for Persons Participating In Research Projects Involving Tests and / or
Medical Procedures.
Faculty of Engineering
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Name of the Participant
Project Title The psychological and physiological effects of light and colour on space users
Investigator Nadeen Abbas
Phone Number
1. I have received a statement explaining the tests/procedures involved in this project.

2. I consent to participate in the above project, the particulars of which - including details of
tests or procedures - have been explained to me.
3. I authorise the investigator or his or her assistant to use with me the tests or procedures
referred to in 1 above.
4. I acknowledge that:
104
APPENDIX H. PARTICIPANT CONSENT FORM 105
The possible effects of the tests or procedures have been explained to me to my

satisfaction.
I have been informed that I am free to withdraw from the project at any time and to
withdraw any unprocessed data previously supplied (unless follow-up is needed for
safety).
The project is for the purpose of research and/or teaching. It may not be of direct
benefit to me.
The privacy of the information I provide will be safeguarded. However should infor-
mation of a private nature need to be disclosed for moral, clinical or legal reasons, I
will be given an opportunity to negotiate the terms of this disclosure.
The security of the research data is assured during and after completion of the study.
The data collected during the study may be published, and a report of the project
outcomes will be provided to Mr Dinesh K. Kumar and published in my thesis. Any
information that will identify me will not be used.
Participants Consent
Participant Name
Participant Signature
Date
Witness Name
Witness Signature
Date
Participants should be given a photocopy of this consent form after it has been signed.
Any complaints about your participation in this project may be directed to the Secretary, RMIT Human Research
Ethics Committee, University Secretariat, RMIT, GPO Box 2476V, Melbourne, 3001. The telephone number is (03)
9925 1745. Details of the complaints procedure are available from the above address.
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Psychological and Physiological Effects of

Light and Colour on Space Users

A Dissertation Submitted in Fulfillment of the Requirements

School of Electrical and Computer Engineering

or unpaid, carried out by a third party is acknowledged.

Signed: .................................................................... Date:...............................

this work which I hope will contribute to the welfare of people.

I also wish to express my appreciation to A/Prof. Panlop Zeephongsekul, Faculty of Applied

I would like to thank my colleagues Prashant Suryanarayanan, Zuraini Dahari, Djuwari

Suryanarayanan for his continuous help, assistance and support.

3. Nadeen Abbas, Prashant Suryanarayanan and Dinesh K. Kumar, The Psychophys-

Submitted Journal Publications

2. Nadeen Abbas, Prashant Suryanarayanan and Dinesh K. Kumar, Correlation of

Assessment Manikin, Skin Conductance.

4 Results and Observation 15

G Plain Language Summary 102

H Participant Consent Form 104

3.1 Electrode Placement for ECG Recordings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

4.1 ECG signal for participant 1 under White light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

3.1 Intensities of coloured lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

4.1 RR & HR values for participant 10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

ANS - Autonomic Nervous System

scientific evidence that supports these choices.

to ensure the objectivity and reproductivity of the experiments.

and intensity light, and they were asked to complete SAM.

were drawn from the results.

it is hard to compare the results.

influence of colour and light.

it is necessary that studies not be limited to the assessment of a single response.

comparison between the studies almost impossible.

objectivity and reproductivity of the experiments.

expected to be good physiological measures of environmental conditions on people. Thus this

2.1 Light, colour and emotion

being exposed to different lighting and colours conditions.

affects the perception of colour [13].

productivity [16], [17], [18].

later re-evaluation of the data [19].

science: poor research design, statistical analysis and reporting [23].

to color. He reports A comprehensive system for the description of emotions is needed to

2.2 Measuring emotion

important to study how to measure emotions.

each of the three manifestations.

participants of the study to adapt to them.

2.3 Physiological measures

2.3.1 Cardiac Activity

in the ANS and hence the HR of the person increases [28].

between anticipated effort and arousal [5].

heart rate is a good measure of physical stress [30].

variability in intervals between successive R waves- RR intervals. RR interval is defined as time

signal whose statistical properties vary with time [31].

2.3.2 Skin conductance

used SC as a measure of emotional response to web advertising [9].

2.4 Psychological measure: Self Assessment Manikin

in SAM were used.

children, people with language disorder and all clinical syndromes[37].

2.5 Aim of the research

intensity and colour by architects, interior designers and other professionals.

in the changes detected.

3.1 Participants selection