The photometry of GCS lighting used as an environmental chromatic cue for self-regulation of negative emotions.

While piloting an unmanned aircraft, the visual modality is one of the most important and demanding (Sivak, 1996). This may be true for foveal vision, but peripheral vision could offer a new way to communicate information without cognitive overloading when operating a ground control station (GCS). Light exercises broad effects besides vision (Vandewalle et al., 2010), including hormone secretion, body temperature, sleep, alertness, cognition, and emotion regulation. The finding that melanopsin is a photopigment highly sensitive to blue wavelengths and that night shift workers have shown deficient in melanopsin receptors (Roecklein et al., 2009) has been linked to mood disorders and has encouraged the use of blue light as a therapeutical instrument. This study proposes that applying an integrative interaction design that uses colour-coded lights to deliver peripheral information to individuals using blue light as a chromatic cue could promote relaxation and reduce physiological reactions associated with negative emotions with implications for emotional health and cognitive performance. Therefore, the aim of this study was to test the effects of blue light in reducing negative emotions. The findings have implications for the design of the photometry of GCS lighting and in particular the use of blue light in confined darkened GCS cabins for unmanned aircraft.