I think it'd prefer driving in areas with amber
HID lighting than a cool white leaning towards blue. The
hand off is that the blue tints will perceptively light an area with more definition than the regular amber
HID tints. Comfort-wise though, I've never been a huge fan of the white-er sodium lights, but would find it much easier to read text from a paper in that light than in the usual ambers.
One of the psychological reactions could be connotation-associated. If people perceive amber
HID street lighting to be everywhere and just as likely to have crime as anywhere else, then would-be criminals are more likely to get into trouble there than a place that appears to have been modernized, upscaled, and cleaned up with different shades of lighting.
It's like swearing. There are over 34 synonyms for feces, but some are more proper than other. People prefer to use one or two synonyms for evoking emotionally-stimulated reactions, but in the science community, they would strictly use other synonyms. They all mean the same thing, but have different connotations behind them. If anyone has a change to look at Steven Pinker's
book, The Stuff of Thought, I would highly recommends it for learning more about perception.
As for the noise-masking that many office buildings are beginning to use, I've heard a lot of good things about it. It's a slight
white-noise in the background, but causes conversations to get drowned out in areas so that while you sit in your cubicle, you don't hear the sales
call the person on the other end of the office is making. Ever spend a lot of time in a really quiet room and then someone breaks the silence. It doesn't even have to be very loud, but it can be irritating? The idea of noise-masking is that there's less of a silence to break, but not so much that the noise itself becomes an irritant. The market for acousticians is going to soar over the next few years, and I think if
Brad Weber of museAV stumbles across this thread, he'll agree with me. As an acoustical engineer, he's having to turn down jobs and projects because he has so many projects flooding in to him. A lot of that hype is contributed to people only in the past couple years becoming aware of how much of an
effect noise pollution, noise
masking, and acoustical treatments actually has. Just as businesses are starting to change over to 4-day work weeks and provide more benefits, with hopes to increase morale and productivity(take a look at how Google treats their employees), they're also experimenting with different lighting and acoustical treatments. Anyone ever feel like they're more comfortable and productive under
incandescent lighting than fluorescents? It's not just you.
I expect in the next few years lighting and acoustical solutions will be a focus for increasing workplace productivity, or in the case you mentioned, reducing crime and fatigue while driving. Anyone who can combine that with the green movement is out to make a fortune.