Lighting for difficult conversations, beer goggles – and a gift for the wildlife in your back yard

Performance review – can lighting help?

If you’re planning your annual review, the right lighting can help you wrap up the year on a bright note.

Check out the venue in advance if you can, try out the different seating options and agree on a space you are all comfortable with. For neurodivergent people, being able to plan ahead will significantly reduce anxiety too – Neurodiversity and Inclusivity in the Workplace: Biopsychosocial Interventions for Promoting Competitive Advantage.

Here are five things to look out for: 

1. Calm – Stress increases vigilance, so your brain will be on high alert, diverting bandwidth from higher-order tasks like remembering detailed information or generating new ideas on the fly – Stress Potentiates Early and Attenuates Late Stages of Visual Processing, Impact of acute psychosocial stress on attentional control in humans. A study of evoked potentials and pupillary response. That vigilant state makes us more sensitive to flicker, glare, high-contrast patterns and background noise, creating a vicious cycle of anxiety that, literally, reduces our ability to see clearly – The impact of psychological stress on the contrast sensitivity function, Surprising Links Between Stress and the Eyes. That doesn’t mean a silent white box: most of us prefer some level of visual complexity and background ‘buzz’ – Final Honors in Psychology Paper.
2. Communication – Reading facial expressions is key to understanding emotion and responding appropriately. Uneven lighting makes it harder to extract that critical information – Discrimination of facial identity based on simple contrast patterns generated by shading and shadows. – for example, we judge faces as less friendly when the eyes are in deep shadow – The influence of light distributions on face illumination and perceived friendliness.  So if you can, try out different seats in the venue and don’t be afraid to move if you or your colleague feel uncomfortable – anything less is a waste of your precious time. 
3. Clear – You read subtle shifts in emotion through changes in blood flow to different parts of the face – one study showed that many of us can interpret the main facial expressions through changes in colouration alone – Facial color is an efficient mechanism to visually transmit emotion. Daylight, or lighting that has high colour rendering – which means it gives out a wide range of wavelengths – will not only help you to spot those critical non-verbal cues, but if you can get a window seat, that connection to the outside world can help you to stay positive too – Why every office needs a window: The influence of a view on cognitive performance.
4. Collaborative – people from different cultures, genders and ages seem to prefer warmer or cooler lights. But most research suggests that, on average, softer, warmer lighting tends to encourage more collaborative and less confrontational behaviour – View it in a different light: Mediated and moderated effects of dim warm light on collaborative conflict resolution, with one study showing that we are more likely to perceive a neutral facial expression as positive when seen in a warmer light – Effects of illuminance and correlated color temperature of indoor light on emotion perception.
5. Privacy – Finally, whether the conversation is going well or not, visual privacy is vital for both parties to focus and engage. That can mean finding a meeting room (avoid the ones with clear glazed walls) or a corner in a cafe. Taking the time to find a space that is outside your everyday radius can help to create a sense of perspective and avoid the inevitable distractions from familiar faces. Just ten minutes walking there will not only give you a burst of alertness-boosting daylight, but reduce your blood pressure too – Accumulation of physical activity: blood pressure reduction between 10-min walking sessions.

None of this will help if you’re feeling sleepy before you start. 

So choose a time when everyone will feel awake and alert, regardless of whether they’re a lark or an owl. If you can schedule these important conversations between around 11am and around 1pm, you’re likely to hit the sweet spot for all – Identifying the Best Times for Cognitive Functioning Using New Methods: Matching University Times to Undergraduate Chronotypes.