Psychological Assessment Of Public Lighting Design

Human has been using electric lighting for more than a century now, ever since a long time ago, the first objective of lighting has been centered on how to light the darkness. However, when the "darkness" is no longer the principal contradiction that restraining development of productivity, people are more willing to, through lighting, decode and explain their city space. What people seek no longer is the "amount of light" that base on illuminance. It is the "light of quality" that should represent the real image of the city space. This paper looks back the lighting design of public space in psychological perspective, probing into ways that will build up "light of quality".This paper for the first time systematically discusses about human needs under light environment in public space basing on Maslow's "hierarchy of needs" theory, meanwhile puts forward a "human needs" model under light environment in public space. This model, with the same pyramidal structure as "hierarchy of needs", consists of both physical and psychological layers. In the model, physical layer of this model is to the lower level while the psychological layer is to the upper level. Psychological layer is divided into three levels -visual psychology layer, environmental psychology layer and aesthetic psychology layer. The traditional ways of lighting design which center on illuminance just cater for basic human physiology and cannot ensure maximum satisfaction of the multi-level human needs. So this paper attempts to break through this limitation by study of the origin of human needs and thorough analysis of human needs in light environment with the help of relevant knowledge of visual psychology, and then come up with lighting design rules in accord with human psychological needs.Firstly, this paper studies how mental set and selectivity in visual perception affect people's perception of light environment, and how to create light environment with different atmosphere by using knowledge of visual psychology. The study of mental set under light environment consist three parts: mental set toward different lighting forms; mental set toward different lighting color and mental set toward different lighting intensity. The study of the selectivity in visual perception under light environment consists two parts: voluntary attention and involuntary attention. Secondly, this paper studies how light environment influence one's behavior with the help of environmental psychology. Kevin Lynch's "Images of the city" theory was introduced into the study and "lighting edges ", "lighting districts", "lighting nodes", "lighting landmark" are evaluated and analyzed as examples of the study. Finally, in the last chapter "Lighting design in public space and aesthetic psychology", the paper studies intrinsic and extrinsic esthetic characteristic of lighting design in public space, then put forward six aesthetic factors with the help of traditional Chinese aesthetic thoughts and western aesthetic psychology. On this basis, the paper discusses how the highest level of psychological needs (aesthetic needs) achieved through design of light environment.