In the last section, effects of the human field of view in measurements regarding the corneal plane were demonstrated. We wanted to know whether and when a FOV occlusion according to the standard
CIE S 026:2018 [
3] was relevant for indoor environments. We designed a FOV occlusion for spectral irradiance measurement devices and took measurements from eight projects across laboratory and real-world workplace setups to get a first tentative answer to those questions. To the best of our knowledge, there are no other publications that have taken on this topic with the focus on melanopic parameters. Our endeavor might sound trivial, as most takeaways in this section can be deduced from geometric principles of light measurement, FOV occlusion angles, and the specifics of luminaires in a scene. It is true that very little (but not none) of the results have surprised us in their general shape. Now, however, we have a first numeric basis for the effect size of FOV occlusion on the quantities we work with regularly for non-visual research.
We first want to give a high-level summary, before we get to overarching project results, limitations of our study, and the further discussion of results in a wider context:
3.2. Limitations
There are several limitations of note when interpreting and generalizing the results from this study. Firstly, the selection of projects and subsequent scenarios are the very definition of an opportunity sample. All of them were existing projects where we had the opportunity to perform the necessary measurements. We do not claim that they are representative for workplaces in general and have thus refrained from calculating overall means or variance parameters. That said, we believe the projects provide a decent starting point with various lighting solutions. Special caution should be taken in situations with very colorful surface materials or lights (see scenario 18-20).
Secondly, there is some evidence that differing incidence angles of light in the eye can change the non-visual effect to an otherwise identical stimulus. Our results cannot contribute to this line of investigation, however. Lasko et al. [
41], e.g., showed a significantly higher melatonin suppression when 500 lx of light came from above the gaze compared to below. However, both stimuli originated within the FOV (upper vs. lower FOV). Our measurements integrate either over the full FOV (with occlusion) or the 2π hemisphere (without). Any information about the directionality of light within the FOV is thus lost, as we were only interested in the proportion of light within to outside. Project C provides a nice example, as the direction of light changes from the panel light above in scenario 6 to the reflection of the spotlight from the workbench below in scenario 7. None of this is reflected in the impact of FOV occlusion that remains at -3% between scenarios.
Thirdly, the eye can rotate in the orbit, which determines the gaze direction in a stricter sense. This limits the FOV even further as He and colleagues recently showed with a mathematical model and accompanying measurements [
42,
43]. Our FOV occlusions do not account for any gaze directions other than straight ahead (
Figure 1). We thus avoided the term
gaze direction in favor of the more specific
head orientation or
horizontal view.
Lastly, beyond the FOV occlusion, another aspect arises from the definition of illuminance, which evaluates incident light from the hemisphere with the cosine function [
44]. Thus, the higher the incidence angle (compared to the direction of gaze), the lower the relative contribution to illuminance and MEDI. The human eye does not behave like a cos-adapted lux meter in this regard, however, even if the overall curve shape of the dependency is similar [44, 45]. Compared to a cosine correction, the eye´s optical components reduce the incident light at any given angle less than a cosine correction would. Our FOV occlusion only cuts off angles outside the FOV but does not correct at angles within (see
Supplemental Figure S3 for details). In a situation with a homogeneous luminance distribution in the visual field, this can lead to a difference of up to 6% compared to the integral measurement of the complete hemisphere [
46]. Larger differences are to be expected in real situations, and neither we nor the common measurement standards for visual and non-visual quantities account for those. The angles with the largest differences between the two curves (cos-adapted and eye) are at least shaded vertically by the FOV [
45]. Some work in this direction was carried out by Van Derlofske et al. (46) in 2000, taking into account the angle-dependent characteristic of the eye, as well as the FOV limitations. An improvement in 2002 also enabled scotopic measurement [
46,
47].
3.3. Further Discussions and Outlook
Previous solutions to the topic of FOV occlusion in measurements include the above described apparatus by Van Derlofske and colleagues [46, 47], using specially adapted optics in front of a photometer. Another solution that we only briefly touched upon in the introduction is based on luminance measurement cameras, as described, e.g., by Broszio et al. (4) and Babilon et al. (5). Both methods have disadvantages, due to high costs (Van Derlofske: approx.
$1,000 for photopic and scotopic measurements; luminance camera: >>10,000
$), limited or no spectral resolution, and limited availability (Van Derlofske: complex replica). The setup from He et al. [42, 43] involves two cameras, and while this allows for a ‘real’ FOV larger than 180° in the horizontal direction, it further increases cost and complexity. Other measurement methods that include spatial resolution, e.g., as described by Knoop et al. (6), have at least potentially similar capabilities to luminance cameras by simply choosing the measurement angles of relevance for the FOV. However, it is likely that they suffer the same downsides. An upside for measurements with spatial resolution in general is the possibility to add correction mappings that account for the non-cosine-adapted eye (see above). Another benefit is the flexibility regarding the FOV used in analysis. The CIE, for example, offers two FOV occlusion angles based on the overall luminance level that determines the state of the eyelids (indoor/outdoor scenarios) [
3], and many more FOV models are described in the literature [
10]. Fixed spatial approaches (such as ours) require an additional occlusion and measurement for each FOV, instead of applying (multiple) FOV’s after the fact in computation.
The method presented in this publication offers the advantage of spectral measurement if used with a spectroradiometer, but it can also be adapted to illuminance measurement devices. It is further low cost (material costs in 3D printing shouldn’t exceed a few euros), easy availability (public print files [
40], short 3D printing duration), and adaptable to different geometries using CAD software to construct other mounting mechanisms. This provides researchers in the field of non-visual effects of light the opportunity to describe their lighting situations in laboratory and field studies more precisely with relatively little additional effort [6, 48]. By using the FOV occlusion on simple measuring devices like photometers, it also enables measurements of corneal illuminance in cases where a spectroradiometer is not available or practical.
We started out this publication with reference to some of the most relevant studies on non-visual effects of light that help us to define dose-response relationships and recommendations for stimulus levels across the day [1, 13]. As
Table 1 clearly shows, those studies were conducted using predominantly Ganzfeld geometries or lights in the central FOV. Based on our results, we would expect a small (Scenario 17: -8%) or negligible (Scenario 7-8) impact for the FOV occlusion in those cases, respectively. Even this assumption might not hold, as Zauner et al. [
49] report a 24% reduction of stimulus size when considering the FOV in the Ganzfeld dome of their study. This means there is at least some variation in the light distribution of Ganzfeld conditions. In practical situations with ceiling mounted lights, however, the deviation to the dominant conditions detailed in
Table 1 is much higher. Our measurements show a significant reduction of up to 60% for illuminance and MEDI when considering the FOV (at horizontal view and realistic settings, see
Table 2 and
Table 3). These results are consistent with the still sparse literature on this topic [5, 46] and have a high relevance towards study design and replicability.
Let us imagine, e.g., that a lighting situation in an experiment was supposedly set to 250 lx MEDI, but only 150 lx MEDI can reach the eye (this would equal a FOV occlusion impact of -40%). If no corrections are made and only the 2π measurement is reported, the significant variance shown in
Section 2 remains hidden, e.g., in a deduced dose-response relationship. If, on the other hand, corrections are made purely through luminous flux to achieve the target value, approximately 1.7 times the luminous flux would have to be applied. This raises the (unrestricted) vertical MEDI value to around 420 lx, which might be an acceptable solution for an experimental setting. However, it is hardly practical as a general recommendation, as it is energy consuming and might lead to other undesirable side effects. Rather, it should be solved through the types and arrangement of light sources, at least in real-world settings.
Another relevant aspect is the importance of head orientations. It seems that the standard vertical measurement direction (horizontal view) is particularly undesirable with realistic light settings. This is because it leads to a far greater error than other viewing directions, which are typically downwards at a monitor (about -15° tilt) or a workpiece on the desk (about -45° tilt), at least in our projects. Because the impact of FOV occlusion and MEDI change in a major way with the head orientation, we strongly recommend including typical viewing directions in addition to vertical measurements.
Finally, our results have other implications for (non-visual) lighting design, besides energy efficiency. Existing recommendations do mention the importance of light-source placement within the FOV (e.g., [
50]). But as this aspect is not integrated in the standard MEDI measurements, it can be easily forgotten along the design process. The results of this study clearly show that even very bright light sources directly above the observers' eye point do not or only slightly contribute to corneal illuminance (see, e.g., scenario 4, 9, 13, or 14.). This can be advantageous for an evening lighting situation when a work surface needs to be illuminated, but the non-visual stimulus intensity at the eye should be limited (scenario 13). For activating situations such as morning hours, it is much more beneficial to bring light from the front or diagonally above the eye (scenario 11). In these cases, the FOV occlusion has only minimal influence. In general, this can be achieved through low-mounted luminaires and indirect lighting on walls or more distant ceiling surfaces. Considering the FOV occlusion in this way thus supports a targeted and energy-efficient non-visual stimulus for experimental and practical designs.
In conclusion, we have shown that the FOV occlusion is an important factor when determining the visual and non-visual stimulus intensity. Even if our investigation can only be considered tentative in terms of how representative our settings are for real-world scenarios, the results strongly hint at a high relevance for the topic. We have also provided the means for others to extend this research with their own measurements [
40]. Lastly, we believe that FOV occlusion should be considered as a mainline entry for future iterations of the standard
CIE S026 instead of the informative part, alongside such relevant factors as age [
3]. This would encourage further adoption among researchers and practitioners.