Research Purpose and Goals

The purpose of this research is to understand the impact of indoor lighting environment on physical training performance by gender difference and to develop an optimum lighting prediction model via human physiological signals for the gender-specific training environment. To achieve this goal, the following objectives were established:

1) Understand the relationship between various indoor lighting environment, human physiological signals, and physical training performance through a series of human experiments

2) Develop a gender-specific indoor lighting prediction model as a function of participant’s physiological signals

The result will provide a better understanding of the gender difference in the relationship between indoor lighting environment and physical training, which will improve the training performance for both genders. Furthermore, the result will enhance the understanding of indoor lighting environment, which can improve the training quality that will significantly contribute to public health via sports.

Significance of Research

In the field of physical training, previous studies proved that lighting intensity affects physical training performance significantly. However, most studies were conducted on elite athletes and there were few studies focused on gender difference which limits the opportunity for better training and to create an improved training environment for the general public.

The new findings from this research will provide a new perspective of gender difference in indoor lighting environments for sports and it will also bridge the gap between psychological and physical aspects of human activity in the indoor lighting environment. Also, the PI has focused on the relationship between indoor environmental factors, human physiological signals, and productivity in his previous studies. The insight from this project will contribute to building his multidisciplinary research program, human-building integration in sports.

Method

A series of human experiments will be conducted to collect the participant’s physiological signals in different lighting conditions, while the participant is under physical training. This research will use pupil size as a main physiological signal, and lighting sensation, comfort, and preference will be surveyed as a participant’s subjective perception. A heart rate and skin temperatures will be collected as well to analyze the relationship between human physiological signals and the lighting environment from diverse perspectives. The training performance will be measured by the combined results, such as cycling, burpee, etc. Collected data will be analyzed by the data-mining software, focusing on the gender difference, and the gender-specific lighting level prediction model for optimum training will be established.

Potential Dissemination and External Funding Plan

The initial data will be presented at the international conference and the significant results will be submitted to prestigious journals in the related domain, such as ‘Building and Environment’ or ‘Indoor Built Environment’. This project has a high potential to be extended further and combined with other research domains. Therefore, continuous researches will be conducted based on the equipment and facility, and the results will be used as preliminary data for the external grant proposal, such as the CAREER grant in National Science Foundation (NSF) as well as the private and federal research foundations.

Last updated April 2021.