A study of the sequential experience of different lighting

Abstract

A person walking through a building will experience a sequence of lighting installations and the adaptive mechanisms of his visual system will respond to each in succession. The delay in the photochemical response of the retinal cones is appreciable in relation to this movement from room to room. Equations have been derived to model this photochemical response, and both a field study and a scale model study have been carried out in order to calibrate this mathematical model. The effects of three alternative approaches have been compared: (1) the time course of photochemical changes was taken into account, (2) adaptation was determined by the illuminance of the area just vacated, and (3) adaptation effects were ignored. In many cases the simplest assumption was adequate. The more complex mathematical model was, however, found to be more accurate.