Lighting Research and Technology vol 40 nr 3 has a couple of articles that sound interesting for anyone involved in visual comfort.

Proportions of direct and indirect indoor lighting — The effect on health, well-being and cognitive performance of office workers, by KI Fostervold and J. Nersveen.

Indirect lighting has been recommended as a way to accommodate lighting needs in offices. To investigate this recommendation, the effect of four ceiling-mounted lighting schemes providing inverse proportions of direct and indirect lighting were studied in ordinary office environments. The study used a 4×3 mixed randomised-repeated design. Dependent variables assessed subjective symptoms, subjective well-being and cognitive performance. Glare, a major contributor to visual strain was physically removed. Photometric measurements showed that proportions of direct and indirect lighting affect the luminous environment. Except for an association between reduced job stress severity and direct lighting, the results indicate that proportions of indirect and direct lighting do not affect the dependent variables. A main effect of the new lighting installation was revealed for subjective symptoms and cognitive performance.

I’m mentioning this one first because visual comfort was, after all, the main topic of my thesis, but also because I heard visual comfort was an active field of research at LESO-PB. One of the research projects that I’m aware of tries to optimize the placement of overhead luminaires in order to jointly optimize the energy consumption and the occupant’s visual comfort.

The other paper that might be worth a trip to the library is

Predicting discomfort glare from outdoor lighting installations, by JD Bullough, PhD, JA Brons, MSc, R. Qi, BEng and MS Rea, PhD.

In addition to sky glow and light trespass, discomfort glare from outdoor lighting installations is a growing concern to the public. A series of experimental investigations was performed to assess the relative impacts of light source photometric characteristics on subjective ratings of discomfort glare. The results converge, demonstrating the influence of light source illuminance, surround illuminance and ambient illuminance on subjective judgements of discomfort glare. A simple model relating these photometric quantities is proposed for making predictions of discomfort glare from outdoor lighting installations. This model can be readily incorporated into existing frameworks for evaluating light pollution as well as into lighting calculation software.

This article addresses apparently an issue that’s often overlooked in studies of visual discomfort, namely the influence of outdoor construction elements.

I only which I had time to read all this stuff…