The illuminance of meeting attendees' faces is one of the most important values for visual tasks in the modern office. A series of experimental studies, with subjective appraisals, were carried out to determine the preferred face illuminance versus the illuminance of the visual task area on a desk.
In previous studies, background illuminance was set at the lower limit value of about 90% cumulative occurrence rate of desk illuminance; then, the background illuminance was changed simultaneously with the desk illuminance. Because of this, the influence of varying background illuminance when desk illuminance is held fixed, or the influence of varying desk illuminance when background illuminance is held fixed had not been determined yet.
In this study, background illuminance and desk illuminance are changed independently of each other. In addition, experiments were conducted to compare face illuminance to desk illuminance in one case and in the other case the face illuminance was observed without comparing it to desk illuminance. The latter two experiments were conducted to see in more detail the effects of desk illuminance on visual tasks.
The results are as follows:
1. There is very little relationship between the optimum face illuminance value and the background (wall) illuminances.
2. There is also very little relationship between the optimum face illumination and background (wall) luminance, including wall reflectance.
3. Whether face illuminance is compared to desk illuminance or not, the optimum face illuminance is in logarithmic proportion to the desk illuminance.
When face and desk illuminances are compared, the optimum face illuminance is more related to desk illuminance than not.
According to conventional theory, optimum face illuminance should be affected by background (wall) illuminance. However, the studies show that the illuminance of the desk in front of the observer has more influence on the optimum face illuminance.
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