Effects of Exposure to Carbon Dioxide and Human Bioeffluents on Cognitive Performance

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine whether exposures to CO2 in the range of 500 ppm to 3,000 ppm with and without bioeffluents influence cognitive performance. Twenty-five subjects were exposed in the climate chamber for 255 minutes. Cognitive performance was examined by multiple tasks including proof-reading, addition, subtraction, text typing, neurobehavioral tests, Tsai-Partington task, and d2 attention task. Subjective ratings of comfort and experienced acute health symptoms were collected, physiological responses of subjects were monitored and the saliva samples were collected to analyze stress biomarkers. The results show that during exposure to bioeffluents with CO2 reaching 3,000 ppm speed of addition was significantly reduced, subjects responded significantly quicker in redirection task and completed significantly less correct links in Tsai-partington test, which may imply that arousal (stress level) was an underlying mechanism.