International Conference of Applied Science on Engineering, Business, Linguistics
and Information Technology (ICo-ASCNITech)
Politeknik Negeri Padang and Politeknik Ibrahim Sultan, 13-15 October 2017
ISSN : 2598-2532
Improving Student Reaction Time through Application of Foliage
Plants Indoors
Desto Jumeno#
#
Department of Industrial Engineering, Andalas University, Limau Manis, Padang, 25143, Indonesia
E-mail: d_jumeno@ft.unand.ac.id
Abstract— Reaction time is important for human to stay alive as well as keeping the quality of work in daily life or in sport. During a
workday people may get tired, therefore their reaction speed may degrade. Keeping one’s vigilance is one key that believed can preserve
reaction time. Nature can serve as source of restoring one’s vigilance. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of indoor foliage
plants on reaction time. A repeated measure design was used in the experiment using 6 foliage plants. Foliage plants were placed on the desk
and on the floor, depending on its size. 16 subjects participated in the experiment. Three types of task were conducted during the experiment
namely typing, addition and logical operation tasks. Results of this study show that reaction time was better in a room with foliage plants
while people working on addition task and logical operation task. While in typing task, there is no difference between working with or without
foliage plants. The results can be applied for designing a classroom, an office, or the other working places
Keywords—vigilance, nature, foliage plants, task, workplace.
this paper is to investigate the effect of indoor foliage plants
on reaction time while conducting several types of task.
I. INTRODUCTION
Reaction time is important for human to stay alive as
well as keeping the quality of work in daily life or in sport.
During a workday people may get tired, therefore their
reaction speed may degrade. Keeping one’s vigilance is one
key that believed can preserve reaction time.
Vigilance is sustained attention over a prolonged period
of time. Drivers, pilots, ATC operators, power plants control
room operators, athletes and so on, have to maintain their
vigilance over their work duration. The lost of vigilance can
induce slower reaction and may bring a driver or pilot and
the vehicle with its passengers into danger, and slower
reaction may induce an athlete to lost his/her game.
Nature can serve as source of restoring one’s vigilance.
Some scholars [1-3] suggest that nature has some restorative
benefits psychologically. Nowadays, people bring nature
into their homes, such as in the living room, common room,
in study room, or in the office. Many types of nature brought
by human to their houses, such as, aquarium, pets, flowers,
and foliage plants.
Among natures, foliage plants are the most common and
have many benefits such as increasing productivity, reducing
stress [4], reducing health complaints [5], improving mood
[6], improving perceived air quality [7], reducing pollutants
such as CO2,[8,9] formaldehyde [10-12], benzene [13,14],
toluene [9,15] and airborne microbes [16.17]. Although
many people used indoor plants as ornament for their room,
there is a possibility to maintain reaction time by bringing
foliage plants indoors. However, the work done by human is
very diverse, from a simple task such as pressing a button,
until a very complex task such as making decision, solving
problems and so on. The way people react in different
working background may be different also. The purpose of
II. MATERIAL AND METHOD
A repeated measure design was used in the experiment
using 6 foliage plants. Experiment was conducted using two
room conditions, namely with plants and no plant. For with
plants condition, six foliage plants were placed on the desk
and on the floor, depending on its size. Six plants were used
in the experiment namely chinese evergreen (aglaonema
commutatum), prayer plant (calathea concinna), peace lily
(spathiphyllum), photos (epiremnum aureum), weeping fig
(ficus benjamina), and dwarf umbrella tree (schefflera
arboricola). The Foliage plants were chosen based on their
commonality and availability. Plant heights were varied
between 25 cm and 50 cm.
16 subjects participated in the experiment. The subject
consists of 8 male and 8 females, with age range from 19-23
years old. Three types of task were conducted during the
experiment namely typing, addition and logical test tasks.
All tasks were performed using laptop. The order of the task
was randomized for each subject. The level of difficulty of
each task for each subject was the same. Task design factors
such as task type, task duration, task demand, and
acclimatization have been studied in the previous research
[18]. Before conducting the task, the subject was given
acclimatization time of 30 minutes.
While performing these tasks using a laptop, a sound
signal was given randomly to the participants. When the
participant hearing the sound signal, he/she should react by
pressing the return or enter on the keyboard. The reaction
time is time between the signal is started and the enter key is
pressed. The reaction time is measured using the computer
with the level of accuracy 10-3 second.
390
International Conference of Applied Science on Engineering, Business, Linguistics
and Information Technology (ICo-ASCNITech)
Politeknik Negeri Padang and Politeknik Ibrahim Sultan, 13-15 October 2017
From the experiment, it was found that the reaction time
during the subjects conducting typing task is higher than two
other tasks, as can be seen in Fig. 2.
III. RESULTS
Reaction Time (second)
From the experiment it is found that reaction time of
subjects in the room with plants condition was lower than
that of in the room with no plant condition, as can be seen in
Table 1 and Figure 1.
TABLE 1
REACTION TIME FOR THE TWO CONDITIONS
Condition
Mean
No plant
With plants
2.375
2.311
Std.
Error
0.114
0.094
Lower
Bound
2.130
2.111
Upper
Bound
2.620
2.512
Typing
Addition
Logical Test
2.478
2.195
2.356
Std.
Error
0.127
0.078
0.104
Lower
Bound
2.206
2.028
2.132
Upper
Bound
2.751
2.362
2.580
Reaction Time (second)
2.7
TABLE 3
THE EFFECT OF PLANTS TASK TYPE ON REACTION TIME
F
0.310
4.321
9.598
df
1
2
2
Significance
0.587
0.036*
0.003*
2.6
2.5
2.4
2.3
2.2
2.1
2
1.9
2.9
Reacction Tim (second)
Logical Test
From the experiment it was found that the reaction time
during addition task and logical test in the room with plants
were lower than the reaction time in the room without plant.
On the other hand, during the typing task, the reaction time
in the room with plants is slightly higher than the reaction
time in the room without plant, as illustrated in Figure 3.
Also, as shown by Figure 3, it can be seen that the time
differences between with plant and no plant conditions is
more clear in the logical test task.
It is found that between the two factors (plant and task
type), the effect of task type on reaction time and the
combination of plant and task type on reaction time are
significant, as shown in Table 3.
Effect
Plant
Task
Plant & Task
Addition
Types of task
Fig. 2. The effect of types of task on reaction time
TABLE 2
REACTION TIME FOR THREE TYPES OF TASK
Mean
2.9
2.7
2.5
2.3
2.1
1.9
1.7
1.5
Typing
Moreover, it is found that reaction time of subjects during
addition task was the lowest among others, and reaction time
of subjects during typing task was the highest among other
tasks, as can be seen in Table 2.
Condition
ISSN : 2598-2532
No Plant
With Plant
Room Condition
Typing
Addition
Logical Test
2.7
2.5
2.3
Fig. 3. The effect of room condition and task type on reaction time
2.1
1.9
IV. DISCUSSION
1.7
From the study it was found that reaction time was
significantly affected by task type and combination of room
condition and type of task. From the study, it was found that
the reaction time during typing task is higher than reaction
time during addition task and reaction time during logical
test task. The reaction time during typing task is higher than
two other tasks can be explained by the nature of the
reaction (i.e. pressing an enter button in the keyboard),
1.5
No plant
With plants
Room Condition
Fig. 1. The effect of room condition on reaction time
391
International Conference of Applied Science on Engineering, Business, Linguistics
and Information Technology (ICo-ASCNITech)
Politeknik Negeri Padang and Politeknik Ibrahim Sultan, 13-15 October 2017
which is similar with the nature of typing task (i.e. requires
pressing buttons in the keyboard at all times). Here the two
tasks (typing and responding to signal) are sharing the same
resources (hand). The result might be different if the
response to the signal is made by pressing a button using
foot or by speaking of mouth.
As for addition and logical test tasks, in which the use of
hand for pressing an enter button is less frequent than typing
task, and more mental task is required, the reaction to the
signal is faster. Although pressing buttons also required in
these two tasks, the need for pressing buttons is less frequent
than typing task. Therefor, the resource sharing is less
frequent also, making the time required to press the button
while responding to the signal smaller.
From the study it is also found that for the addition and
logical test tasks, the reaction time in room with the plants is
smaller than the reaction time in room without plant. In other
words, the reaction is faster in the room with plants presence
than the reaction in the room without any plant presence.
This result was similar with the results of Lohr et al. (2000)
and Shibata and Suzuki (2002). The addition and logical test
task require a substantial amount of mental effort and
therefore give more mental pressure to the subject. Within
the duration of task, the pressure felt by the subject is
accumulated. This accumulation may induce fatigue to the
subject, making the reaction time more slowly.
As
suggested by Kaplan (1995) and Hartig et al. (1991), nature
can have a restorative benefit. Therefore, by the presence of
plants in the room, mental freshness of the subject is
restored, making the reaction time quicker.
On the other hand, the restorative benefit of the presence
of plants was not seen in the typing task. This is because the
mental effort required by the typing task is lower than the
addition and logical test tasks. So that, in the typing task, the
mental pressure is not high and also less fatigue was felt,
making the presence of plants has no or little effect. When
the task requires more mental effort, the benefit of plants is
increased. This can be seen from the result of this study, that
the decrease in reaction time in the logical test is more
significant than the decrease in reaction time in the addition
test. Logical test requires more mental effort than addition
test. In addition test, number is perceived and processed with
other number by calling the result from the long-term
memory. In more difficult addition, the result is stored in the
working memory for latter use. The information used in the
addition only numbers. In logical test, more information is
perceived, recalled from long-term memory, stored in the
working memory, and the process may be repeated until the
satisfactory result achieved. Here, many information types
may be required. Therefore, the mental processes of the
logical task in the brain are more sophisticated than that of
the addition task. On the other hand, the mental process of
typing task is simpler. It requires recognition of a character,
than mapping it physically to the keyboard. The effect of
plants is more significant in more sophisticated or difficult
task than in simpler task.
However, the tasks conducted in this study might be
relatively simple, less difficult and have no risk to the
subject than other managerial tasks, such as problem solving
ISSN : 2598-2532
tasks, scheduling operations, and so on that have significant
impact and risk on the subject or on the company. Future
study is required to take into account the risk factors into the
task, and how the subject would react to a signal in the given
nature of task. Another study design may be used for this
objective. The other chances for future study are the choices
of reaction, the variation of reactions, using other modality,
the effect of sleep behavior, work-rest schedule, work
responsibilities, and so on, related to the work design.
V. CONCLUSIONS
This study investigated the effect of the presence of plants
and different types of task on the subject reaction time.
Results of this study show that reaction time was better in a
room with foliage plants while people working on a
sophisticated task than in a room without plant. While in
simple task such as typing task, there is no difference
between working with or without foliage plants. The results
can be applied for designing a classroom, an office, or the
other working places. Future study in this area is still widely
open.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This study was funded by the Directorate General of Higher
Education, Ministry of Research, Technology, and Higher
Education, Republic of Indonesia, under the post doctoral
research scheme.
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Politeknik Negeri Padang and Politeknik Ibrahim Sultan, 13-15 October 2017
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