The aim of the study was to determine whether indoor lighting and colour would have any systematic impact on the mood of people working indoors. Earlier studies have mostly focused either on light, colour or windows in laboratory settings. The present study was carried out in real work environments at different seasons and in countries with different latitudes. A total of 988 persons completed all parts of the study. In the countries situated far north of the equator there was a significant variation in psychological mood over the year that did not occur in the countries closer to the equator. When all four countries were considered together, it became evident that the light and colour of the workplace itself also had an influence on the mood of persons working there. The workers' mood was at its lowest when the lighting was experienced as much too dark. The mood then improved and reached its highest level when the lighting was experienced as just right, but when it became too bright the mood declined again. On the other hand, the illuminance as measured in objective terms, showed no significant impact on mood at any time of the year. The relationship between mood and the distance to the nearest window was bimodal. The results also indicate that the use of good colour design might contribute to a more positive mood. It is suggested that in future research light and colour should be studied as parts of the more complex system making up a healthy building.

Light can impact psychobiological processes in a healthy or harmful way, challenging designers to better understand the resources they are manipulating. The present exploratory study compared two forms of office lighting which differed in correlated colour temperatures and light level. A holistic approach, comprising visual, emotional and biological dimensions, was used to assess the lighting conditions that could favour productivity and well-being by means of the identification of congruent relationships between objective and subjective measurements in response to light stimuli. The former included analyses of melatonin and cortisol, and the latter were psychological instruments for measuring transitory mood, somnolence, and visual comfort. Controlled experiments were run in a laboratory with a repeated measures design, which yielded fifty-six evaluations. Although no extreme ranges of correlated colour temperatures were used in this study, the spectral blue component present in the correlated colour temperature of approximately 4000 K, and also provided by the light-emitting diodes system at a higher light level, could have contributed to render most of the strong effects on the inter and intra correlations among the psychobiological responses. The mediator role of the psychological profile of the individuals was demonstrated by the significant predictive value of the perceived stress measures.

This review uses Seasonal Affective Disorder, a depression with a seasonal pattern, to illustrate why engineers, architects, and designers need to look beyond their disciplines and make use of the research output of environmental psychology. Studies of winter SAD in low latitude regions and SAD during summer have shown the need to move away from considering lighting in isolation towards a more holistic view of the environment including personal factors, as is done in environmental psychology.

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This article aims to address two aspects of lighting often treated intuitively by designers in charge of creating retail atmospheres, that is, the impact of color and light distribution, as design variables. The study comprised a controlled experiment with a repeated measure design with three directions of lighting (front, overhead, and wallwasher), as the within‐subject factor and four color combinations of the walls (yellow‐blue, magenta, gray, and green‐magenta), as the between‐group variable. The perceptual (visually) and emotional responses of 184 participants revealed the interplay between light and color on these psychological outcomes. Specifically, the results showed that the overhead direction of lighting improves the appearance of the less favored color conditions, either in terms of lack of visual complexity (monochromatic) or color itself (gray). In turn, the wallwasher lighting emphasized these attributes, differing according to visual or emotional aspects. In retailing, emotional dimensions such as activation and evaluation are desired, and they were confirmed across all the lighting and color conditions of this study. The results provide designers with certain perceptual cues regarding colors and their lighting mode to create desirable impressions and affect in retail spaces.

Objetivou-se avaliar o efeito de nove anos na sazonalidade, qualidade, composição, produção e o preço comercializado pelo litro de leite, em uma fazenda leiteira ao Norte do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul. Foram tabulados dados de gordura, proteína, lactose, sólidos totais, extrato seco desengordurados, contagem de células somáticas (CCS), contagem bacteriana total (CBT), produção de leite comercializada mensalmente, produção média por animal e preço comercializado pelo litro de leite. Para a análise estatística foi utilizado a análise de variância considerando o efeito das estações do ano (verão, outono, inverno e primavera) e anos, já para a correlação de Pearson, buscou-se verificar a correlação entre o valor do litro de leite comercializado em relação a composição centesimal do leite, qualidade microbiológica e volume de leite comercializado.  O inverno e a primavera caracterizaram-se como as estações com o maior volume de leite comercializado, maiores teores de lactose, menores índices de CCS e CBT. Já em relação ao preço do litro de leite comercializado, as estações com os maiores valores pago foram, outono e inverno, seguido de verão e primavera. Além disso, este estudo evidenciou que os principais componentes responsáveis pela formulação do preço comercializado pelo litro de leite, foram, CSS, CBT proteína, lactose e volume comercializado. Desta forma, as estações do ano e os diferentes anos interferiram na composição, qualidade, produção e no preço do litro de leite.

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