Visual Fatigue in Sonar Control Rooms Lighted by Red, White, or Blue Illumination

Abstract

To determine, whether visual, fatigue, which can occur for some individuals working in red light at close distances, is a problem of importance for the operation of visual sonar displays. FINDINGS There was evidence that older, far-sighted individuals did show changes indicative of fatigue under red light while younger individuals with normal vision did not. No performance decrements were found for any group.

Assessment of Human Color Discrimination Based on Illuminant Color, Ambient Illumination and Screen Background Color for Visual Display Terminal Workers

“…The findings indicated that the error scores under the red and blue illuminant were significantly higher than the error scores under white illuminant, a finding that was consistent with previous studies 12,14) . It is possible that the subjects were accustomed to the daylight or fluorescent light as a "usual" illumination so they could arrange the shades of colors on the screen more easily, while it may have been more difficult to discriminate the color-matching test of FM-100 colors under the colored illuminant because the subjects were not accustomed to environmental colored illuminant.…”

“…For example, in the control rooms of some military battlefield control towers, operators manipulate a radar system under red or blue illuminant, and operators working in the information center or main machine control room of military ships perform sonar detection tasks on the VDTs under red, blue, and white illuminant 12) . In this kind of environments, any hue discrimination errors are critical.…”

Performance and Preference with Various VDT (Video Display Terminal) Phosphors

“…More accommodation is required to focus red light, and this becomes more difficult with age. Red light thus tends to produce more fatigue (Kinney et al, 1983), particularly with older people.…”

The Relative Effectiveness of Red and White Light for Subsequent Dark-Adaptation

“…They require more acco •, ,t ion to focus them on the retina, which could be uncomfortable Indeed, a recent study of the eye-movements of men monitoring a sonar display for two hours under different colors of ambient light gave some evidence of greater physiological fatigue under red light than under blue or white (42 The widespread unpopularity of red light (55, 56) should not be dismissed out of hand, because it has been shown (57: 58) that there is a relationship between reports of how people feel and their physiological measures@ Liebhart has reviewed the evidence that the emotions are aroused when one believes that one has been exposed to an unpleasant stimulus (59).…”