Borderline between Comfort and Discomfort of Blinking Light.

A visual experiment was carried out to obtain the BCD luminance of a blinking light under the conditions of 0.1 to 100cd/m2 of background luminance and a 1 to 16 Hz blink rate. The test light was a circle with diameter of 3 minutes (6.0×10-7 sr). The experimental results showed that BCD luminance was highest in the case of a steady light with any background luminance, the BCD luminance was the lowest at around 5 to 8 Hz, and the blinking frequency corresponding to the minimum BCD luminance increased in parallel with an increase in the background luminance. Also it was found that the BCD luminance of the blinking light increased in parallel with an increase in the background luminance, a trend which was similar to the relationship between the BCD luminance of a steady light and the background luminance.