PHYSIOLOGICAL RESPONSES TO ARTIFICIAL LIGHTING ENVIRONMENTS : RELATION TO PERSONALITY TRAITS AND NONVISUAL EFFECTS OF BLUE-PULSED LIGHT(Special Topic: Frontiers in Physiological Anthropology (Part 1))

Abstract

To assess the physiological responses of subjects with differing personality traits to the artificial lighting environments, we examined the effects of four lighting conditions on cognition taste thresholds and saliva secretion in relation to subjects' personality types (Type A vs. B behavior pattern and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory) in 40 healthy men. The physiological responses to light differed between the Type A and Type B subjects and among the high-, middle- and low-scorers on a trait anxiety test. We next studied the nonvisual effects of blue-pulsed light, and we observed that the nonvisual effect of pupillary constriction (miosis) occurred even during blue-pulsed light irradiation at very short pulse widths. When the product of irradiance intensity and the pulse width were equal, the condition of high irradiance and short pulse width was shown to produce marked miosis.