This paper aims to disclose the effects of environmental lighting on cognitive ergonomics in the single working mode of visual display terminals (VDTs) and the multi-working mode involving both the VDTs and hard-copy documents, and identify the optimal lighting parameters for the multi-working mode. To this end, cognitive efficiency experiments were carried out in different lighting conditions and different working modes, taking illuminance and colour temperature as independent variables and reaction time and accuracy as dependent variables. During the research, the subjective questionnaire survey and eye movement indices were treated as corroborating data. The main conclusions are as follows: the multi-working mode is low in speed but high in accuracy, and less likely to cause eye strain; the lighting conditions have no significant effect on VDT cognition efficiency in either working mode; however, the colour temperature of 6,500K and the illuminance of 500lx tend to cause eye fatigue in VDT single working mode; in multi-working mode, the optimal lighting conditions for the best cognitive ergonomics are: high illuminance (700lx) and white light (4000K). The research findings reveal the relationship among lighting conditions, working mode and cognitive efficiency, lay a scientific basis for workplace design.

Multi-Working Mode, Cognitive Ergonomics, Lighting Ergonomics, Visual Display Terminal (Vdt), Hard-Copy Documents, Illuminance