Using a visual display controlling melanopic irradiance to regulate sleep

Evening display light can acutely increase alertness and improve performance. But it can also lead to circadian misalignment and go along with sleep problems. On this account several applications are used to manipulate light settings (e.g. “Night Shift”) by making lights dimmer or ‘yellower’ which causes unwanted changes in brightness and color. The primary requirement for any lighting system or visual display is to support vision. Our mission is to develop a light solution that is adapted to the visual and nonvisual system. To achieve this goal, we are observing the effects of a new display technology on sleep, circadian physiology, cognitive performance and pupil size in humans.

This project is funded by the SNSF.