Visual environment of a control room

Abstract

Employees who work in control rooms for long periods monitoring and handling control panels often experience psychological stress and fatigue. A pleasant visual environment can play an important role in alleviating this. In this study, the relationship between a pleasant atmosphere and the physical factors constituting the visual environment of the control room is examined. A series of experiments were carried out using fifteenth-scale models of control rooms. The semantic differential rating method was applied to evaluate the atmosphere of each model. The important physical factors chosen as parameters were the illuminating system, reflectance of louvres, illuminance level, height of ceiling, colour of control panels, presence of windows, presence of potted plants and so on. Semantic differential rating data were analysed by factor analysis. The two psychological factors 'spaciousness' and 'friendliness', were extracted, and the relationship between these factors and the physical factors was clarified.