TY - JOUR
T1 - How indoor environmental quality affects occupants’ cognitive functions
T2 - A systematic review
AU - Wang, Chao
AU - Zhang, Fan
AU - Wang, Julian
AU - Doyle, James K.
AU - Hancock, Peter A.
AU - Mak, Cheuk Ming
AU - Liu, Shichao
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) under Grant No. 1931077 and Grant No. 2028224 . The authors appreciate the valuable comments from reviewers and Dr. Stefano Schiavon of University of California, Berkeley.
Funding Information:
This work was supported by U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) under Grant No. 1931077 and Grant No. 2028224. The authors appreciate the valuable comments from reviewers and Dr. Stefano Schiavon of University of California, Berkeley.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2021/4/15
Y1 - 2021/4/15
N2 - Cognitive functions refer to the set of brain-based skills to execute tasks of various difficulty levels. As people spend substantial time indoors, the indoor environmental quality (IEQ) influences occupants’ cognitive functions and consequently their learning and work performance. Previous studies have commonly examined the effects of IEQ on integrated learning or work performance, rather than specific cognitive skills. The present review decomposes IEQ into five factors—indoor air quality, the thermal environment, lighting, noise, and non-light visual factors. It divided cognition into five categories—attention, perception, memory, language function, and higher order cognitive skills—to better understand the relationship between IEQ and cognition. We conducted a detailed manual review of 66 focused studies and adopted co-occurrence analysis to generate landscapes of the associations between IEQ and cognition factors by analyzing keywords and abstracts of 8133 studies. Overall, results show that poor IEQ conditions are but not always associated with reduced cognition. However, the effects of a specific IEQ factor on different cognitive functions are quite distinct. Likewise, a specific cognitive function could be affected by different IEQ factors to varying degrees. Furthermore, the results suggest extensive inconsistencies in the relevant literature, especially regarding the effects of IAQ or thermal environment on cognition. Additionally, the keyword co-occurrence analysis identified more IEQ factors and cognitive functions emerging in the recent literature. Future studies are recommended to explore the factors causing the inconsistencies that we highlight here.
AB - Cognitive functions refer to the set of brain-based skills to execute tasks of various difficulty levels. As people spend substantial time indoors, the indoor environmental quality (IEQ) influences occupants’ cognitive functions and consequently their learning and work performance. Previous studies have commonly examined the effects of IEQ on integrated learning or work performance, rather than specific cognitive skills. The present review decomposes IEQ into five factors—indoor air quality, the thermal environment, lighting, noise, and non-light visual factors. It divided cognition into five categories—attention, perception, memory, language function, and higher order cognitive skills—to better understand the relationship between IEQ and cognition. We conducted a detailed manual review of 66 focused studies and adopted co-occurrence analysis to generate landscapes of the associations between IEQ and cognition factors by analyzing keywords and abstracts of 8133 studies. Overall, results show that poor IEQ conditions are but not always associated with reduced cognition. However, the effects of a specific IEQ factor on different cognitive functions are quite distinct. Likewise, a specific cognitive function could be affected by different IEQ factors to varying degrees. Furthermore, the results suggest extensive inconsistencies in the relevant literature, especially regarding the effects of IAQ or thermal environment on cognition. Additionally, the keyword co-occurrence analysis identified more IEQ factors and cognitive functions emerging in the recent literature. Future studies are recommended to explore the factors causing the inconsistencies that we highlight here.
KW - Environmental design
KW - Healthy buildings
KW - Learning performance
KW - Occupant satisfaction
KW - Productivity
KW - Work efficiency
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85100376053&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.buildenv.2021.107647
DO - 10.1016/j.buildenv.2021.107647
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:85100376053
SN - 0360-1323
VL - 193
JO - Building and Environment
JF - Building and Environment
M1 - 107647
ER -