Effects of air temperature on cognitive work performance of acclimatized people in severely cold region in China

Abstract

The study aimed to assess the effect of indoor air temperature on cognitive work performance of acclimatized people during the middle of heating season in severely cold region in China. How does temperature affect work performance was also investigated through subjective surveys. Eighteen acclimatized and healthy participants (10 males and 8 females) carried out tasks in a climate chamber under six temperatures (18°C, 20°C, 22°C, 24°C, 26°C and 28°C). They completed 11 neuro-behavioural tests, including perception, learning and memory, thinking, expression and executive function tests, and subjective surveys on thermal sensation, emotion, health, workload and enthusiasm. Results showed that temperature has an effect on the variation on the neuro-behavioural performance depending on task types and difficulties. Temperature could influence the response time significantly more than accuracy when tasks were performed without feedback. Under adverse environment, people would feel (slightly) cool or warm, feel less enthusiastic to work, and would have more negative emotions, perceived sick building syndrome to be more serious and would have evaluated performance as worse. They would also perform badly on neuro-behavioural tests. Subjective surveys were important supplements to objective evaluation on the effect of indoor environment factors on work performance.