The Lighting Research Center (LRC) is recruiting persons over 18 years of age to participate in a study that will take place over the course of five weeks, one session each week. The study pays a total of $375 for completing all five weeks.

The weeks of the study are May 27 and June 3, 10, 17 and 24. The study will take place on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday of those weeks. Participants may choose the day of the week they wish to attend.  

The study will investigate the alerting effects of light by measuring brain activities under different light exposures using electroencephalogram (EEG) and through various performance tests done on a computer.

Participants need to attend all five scheduled sessions, unless they decide to withdraw from the experiment. In order to be eligible to participate in the experiment, participants need to have regular bed times no later than 11:00 p.m. and wake up no later than 8:00 a.m. This regular schedule must be kept throughout the study. Participants will be asked to wear an actigraph and keep a sleep log all the weeks of the study, starting one week before the study begins. If the actigraph data shows that the sleep schedule was not followed, the participant will not be allowed to continue in the study.

For each session, participants will arrive at the LRC at 10:00 p.m. and electrodes will be placed on the scalp. EEG is a non-invasive, safe procedure to record brain activities. In order to obtain an accurate EEG measurement, it is necessary to clean small areas of the skin with wet cotton and apply a water-soluble paste to attach the electrodes. The study will begin at 11:00 p.m. and will be conducted for two hours. Three EEG measurements will be collected during the first hour. Each collection will last for three minutes; during this time the participants will place their chin into a chinrest, fixate on a mark, and hold still. At the end of EEG collection, 35 minutes of computer based performance testing will be started. One week prior to the start of the experiment, participants will come into the LRC for a one-hour training session and are given an actigraph to wear.

Exclusions: Persons cannot participate in the experiment if they 1) have any major health problems, 2) are colorblind, 3) are taking any prescription medication (except for birth control pills), or 4) will be traveling one or more time zones the month before or during the weeks of the experiment.

Participants will be paid $75 for each session – a total of $375 for completing all five weeks of the study. Payment will be processed by Rensselaer after each session. If a participant is not a U.S. citizen, taxes will be withheld from payment. Persons interested in participating in the study should contact Madison Laks at [email protected] or (518) 276-7112 for more information.