Affective ambiences created with lighting for older people

Abstract

Current lighting technologies provide huge flexibility in creating ambiences that may be adapted to the needs of an occupant in a room. These ambiences not only satisfy visual needs, but may also improve people’s well-being. This paper describes one possible application of adaptable light ambiences, namely to counteract negative mood states that older people often experience in care centres. To this end, we wanted to create a pleasant, relaxing ambience to counteract anxiousness and a pleasant, activating ambience to counteract sadness. We asked 15 (relatively young) lighting designers to create these ambiences and averaged their input to create both ambiences in a real room. Subsequently, these ambiences were evaluated with the Atmosphere questionnaire by younger and older participants. The affective connotation of the ambiences in terms of the Atmosphere dimensions was well recognized by the younger participants but significantly less so by the older people. Hence, a photo interview with older people was used to make the ambiences more appropriate for them. A final validation experiment confirmed that the affective connotation of these new ambiences was well recognized by the older people.