Interaction of temperature, illuminance and apparent time on sedentary work fatigue

Boosting working memory with accelerated clocks

Our perception of time varies with the degree of cognitive engagement in tasks. The perceived passage of time accelerates while working on demanding tasks, whereas time appears to drag during boring situations. Our experiment aimed at investigating whether this relationship is mutual: Can manipulated announcements of elapsed time systematically affect the attentional resources applied to a cognitive task? We measured behavioral performance and the EEG in a whole report working memory paradigm with six items of different colors that each had to be reported after a short delay period. The 32 participants were informed about the current time after each 20 trials, while the clock was running at either 100% (normal), 120% (fast), or 80% (slow) of normal clock speed depending on the experimental block. The mean number of correctly reported colors per trial was significantly increased in the fast as compared to the slow and normal clock conditions. In the EEG, we focused on neural oscillations during working memory encoding and storage. As an electrophysiological correlate of task engagement, frontal theta power during the storage interval was increased in the fast clock condition. Also, the power of frontal theta oscillations predicted the number of correctly reported colors on a single-trial basis. This shows that a covert manipulation of clock speed can lead to an improvement in cognitive performance, presumably mediated by a higher allocation of attentional resources resulting from an adaptation of the subjective passage of time during an experiment.

Determination of the Simplified Daylight Glare Probability (DGPs) Criteria for Daylit Office Spaces in Thailand

The increasing trend of employing glazed façades to utilize daylight in the buildings has made it necessary to develop measures to avoid excessive sunlight penetration in such daylit spaces. In Thailand, only a few studies have focused on daylight glare, and therefore, applicable criteria are required to fulfill the local preference. This study aimed to determine daylight glare thresholds on the basis of the occupants’ responses. A post-occupancy evaluation with a simplified daylight glare probability (DGPs) model was performed in eight open-plan office spaces located in Bangkok, Thailand. The occupants participated in a survey including a subjective questionnaire; the results showed that the DGPs model performed effectively for glare prediction, with a preference for a lower level than that found in the current references. Statistical analysis helped mark the threshold values for each glare sensation level: imperceptible–perceptible = 0.22; perceptible–disturbing = 0.24; and disturbing–intolerable = 0.26. The findings of this study can be considered as initial evidence for improving the understanding of local occupants’ perspectives and illumination standards, which currently encourage daylight utilization without any specific glare control strategies.

Cognitions about time affect perception, behavior, and physiology - A review on effects of external clock-speed manipulations

Our understanding of (altered) time perception may benefit from investigating its potential effects upon other psychological and physiological parameters. To date, however, only a few rather isolated studies have experimentally manipulated the subjective passage of time or the amount of apparently elapsed duration in order to investigate such effects. Based on our review of these studies, first, altered time perception can be induced effectively by means of rigged (accelerated or decelerated) external clocks, second, these clock-speed manipulations remain unnoticed by most participants, and third, several psychological, cognitive, behavioral, and physiological variables can be affected, e.g., fatigue, hunger, pain perception. However, the existing studies on time-perception manipulation do not systematically relate to each other and the underlying mechanisms of the observed effects are poorly understood. Based on cognitive appraisal theories and the given empirical results, we propose a cognitive framework for interpreting and explaining the effects of manipulations of time perception.

Biometeorological effects on worker absenteeism

The effects of six biometeorological variables (temperature, precipitation, air pressure, humidity, wind speed, and snow) on plant-wide worker absenteeism rates were investigated using 4 years of daily absence data (n=889). After holding constant temporal variables (years, season, and day of week), and then other biometeorological variables, all but one of the variables under consideration were uniquely and significantly related to absenteeism: temperature (r(partial)=-0.17***), precipitation (r(partial)=0.12***), air pressure (r(partial)=-0.09**), wind speed (r(partial)=0.11*), and snow (r(partial)=0.30***). Humidity (r(partial)=-00, ns) was not uniquely correlated. The adjusted R(2) of .29 (full R=0.55) for the entire model was also significant, illustrating the importance of these exogenous, meteorological variables in developing a prediction model of plant-wide absenteeism.