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In modern workplaces, the well-being and productivity of employees are increasingly recognized as essential for organizational success. This study explores the impact of lighting interventions—specifically, Correlated Color Temperature (CCT) and illumination intensity—on stress and cognitive function restoration among office workers. A between-subjects experimental design involving 100 participants assessed the effects of various lighting conditions on stress responses and cognitive performance after exposure to stress-inducing and cognitive fatigue tasks. Five experimental conditions were studied: 100 lux & 7000 K, 100 lux & 3000 K, 1000 lux & 7000 K, 1000 lux & 3000 K, and a baseline condition of 500 lux at 3700 K. Results indicated that lighting conditions significantly influence both physiological stress markers (such as skin conductance level and heart rate) and cognitive performance. Specifically, warm, and dimmed lighting (3000 K, 100 lux) effectively reduced stress markers and perceived stress levels, aligning with theories suggesting the calming effects of warmer white light tones. Conversely, cooler lighting (7000 K) was associated with enhanced cognitive performance and reduced cognitive fatigue, potentially due to its similarity to natural daylight, stimulating an alert state conducive to mental tasks. These findings suggest that lighting interventions offer a non-intrusive strategy to improve well-being and productivity in office environments, particularly addressing acute symptoms. 

Previous studies have primarily focused on predicting stress arousal, encompassing physiological, behavioral, and psychological responses to stressors, while neglecting the examination of stress appraisal. Stress appraisal involves the cognitive evaluation of a situation as stressful or non-stressful, and as a threat/pressure or a challenge/opportunity. In this study, we investigated several research questions related to the association between states of stress appraisal (i.e., boredom, eustress, coexisting eustress-distress, distress) and various factors such as stress levels, mood, productivity, physiological and behavioral responses, as well as the most effective ML algorithms and data signals for predicting stress appraisal. The results support the Yerkes-Dodson law, showing that a moderate stress level is associated with increased productivity and positive mood, while low and high levels of stress are related to decreased productivity and negative mood, with distress overpowering eustress when they coexist. Changes in stress appraisal relative to physiological and behavioral features were examined through the lenses of stress arousal, activity engagement, and performance. An XGBOOST model achieved the best prediction accuracies of stress appraisal, reaching 82.78% when combining physiological and behavioral features and 79.55% using only the physiological dataset. The small accuracy difference of 3% indicates that physiological data alone may be adequate to accurately predict stress appraisal, and the feature importance results identified electrodermal activity, skin temperature, and blood volume pulse as the most useful physiologic features. Implementing these models within work environments can serve as a foundation for designing workplace policies, practices, and stress management strategies that prioritize the promotion of eustress while reducing distress and boredom. Such efforts can foster a supportive work environment to enhance employee well-being and productivity. 

We investigated the physiological (heart rate variability) and psychological (state of anxiety, pleasantness, and comfort) effects of ambient bergamot scent on the stress levels of office workers by exposing them to the scent while stressors persisted as the workers continued to work on the office tasks. Forty-eight young adults were randomly assigned to either a control or scent group. Our results show that the stress restoration effect of bergamot scent depends on gender. The change in heart rate variability revealed that bergamot scent increased stress among males but not for females. The reported pleasantness and comfort followed the same trend. Compared to the control groups, females in the scent group thought the office smelled pleasant and felt more comfortable, but males in the scent group reported the opposite. However, no gender effect was found in the level of state anxiety. Specifically, compared to the control groups, both males and females exposed to the bergamot scent self-reported decreasing stress levels. This inconsistency between self-reported stress and physiological measurements is not uncommon, especially among males who are socialized to downplay emotional experiences. Our data suggest that there is indeed a gender difference in the effectiveness of the bergamot scent for reducing stress in office workers. 

Abstract Active shooter incidents represent an increasing threat to American society, especially in commercial and educational buildings. In recent years, a wide variety of security countermeasures have been recommended by public and governmental agencies. Many of these countermeasures are aimed to increase building security, yet their impact on human behavior when an active shooter incident occurs remains underexplored. To fill this research gap, we conducted virtual experiments to evaluate the impact of countermeasures on human behavior during active shooter incidents. A total of 162 office workers and middle/high school teachers were recruited to respond to an active shooter incident in virtual office and school buildings with or without the implementation of multiple countermeasures. The experiment results showed countermeasures significantly influenced participants’ response time and decisions (e.g., run, hide, fight). Participants’ responses and perceptions of the active shooter incident were also contingent on their daily roles, as well as building and social contexts. Teachers had more concerns for occupants’ safety than office workers. Moreover, teachers had more positive perceptions of occupants in the school, whereas office workers had more positive perceptions of occupants in the office.