照明的非视觉作用及其脑神经机制

The Nonvisual Effect of Lighting and Its Neural Mechanism

照明在人类生活、工作和学习中发挥着举足轻重的作用,除了提供基本的视觉作用(对周围事物的大小、颜色、形状等方面的视觉感知)外,还会对人的生理、心理功能产生显著影响,如调节褪黑素分泌、影响生物节律,促进认知加工、调节由季节变化引起的情绪情感障碍(SAD)等。这种对生理、心理活动产生直接或间接的影响即为照明的非视觉作用。近年来,照明的非视觉作用及其背后的神经机制得到了研究者的广泛关注和大量实证研究,并取得了丰硕成果。未来研究需从模型建构、动态照明等角度入手进一步探索照明的非视觉作用及其脑神经机制。

Lighting is playing a crucial role in people＇s daily life. It not only provides us with the basic visual effects such as perceiving the objects＇ color and size, distinguishing directions, but also has a significant impact on psycho-physiological activities. A growing number of studies have found that lighting, especially the bright light or light with high correlated color temperature, could significantly decrease sleepiness and enhance subjective alertness by suppressing melatonin secretion. Otherwise, lighting plays a positive role in regulating circadian rhythms so as to keep individuals＇ normal activities. Additionally, previous findings indicated that exposure to bright light could improve cognitive performance, relieve seasonal affective disorders （SAD） and even to some extent had a beneficial influence on some social behaviors like altruistic behavior. Both these direct and indirect influences of lighting on physiological and psychological activities mentioned above were all regarded as nonvisual effect of lighting. In recent years, the nonvisual effect of lighting and its brain mechanisms has been attracting much more attention and yielded plenty of valuable results. Future research should focus on the construction of structural equation modeling and the utilization of dynamic lighting to further explore the nonvisual effect of lighting.