Individual and group differences in discomfort glare responses

Abstract

Discomfort glare conditions were generated in an experimental viewing cubicle supplied with a variable luminance glare source operated by a manually controlled dimmer. Repeated settings of the four IES discomfort glare criteria were made by forty-one volunteer subjects all of whom were recruited from three different industries and a wide range of employment categories. At the end of twenty days of practice large differences in the settings were found between subjects for each glare criterion and certain differences emerged between each of the three groups. This wide variation is consistent with other studies on sensory discomfort. It is concluded that many different factors are likely to be the cause of such variability and that further research into them is required in order to understand why people are sensitive to glare and other aspects of the physical environment.