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Previous research has found that individuals with social phobia differ from controls in their processing of emotional faces. For instance, people with social phobia show increased attention to briefly presented threatening faces. However, when exposure times are increased, the direction of this attentional bias is more unclear. Studies investigating eye movements have found both increased as well as decreased attention to threatening faces in socially anxious participants. The current study investigated eye movements to emotional faces in eight patients with social phobia and 34 controls. Three different tasks with different exposure durations were used, which allowed for an investigation of the time course of attention. At the early time interval, patients showed a complex pattern of both vigilance and avoidance of threatening faces. At the longest time interval, patients avoided the eyes of sad, disgust, and neutral faces more than controls, whereas there were no group differences for angry faces.

The present shift and change in the human lifestyle across the world are undeniable. Currently, individuals spend a substantial amount of time indoors due to the global COVID-19 pandemic that strikes the entire world. This change in human lifestyle has devastating effects on human health and productivity. As a result, the influence of indoor environmental quality (IEQ) on the health and productivity of building users becomes a critical field of research that requires immediate attention. As a result, the purpose of this study is to review the state-of-the-art literature by establishing a connection between the factors that influence health and productivity in any given indoor environment.

The methodology involves a thorough review of selected published journals from 1983 to 2021, and the result was analysed through content analysis. The search included journal articles, books and conference proceedings on the critical factors influencing IEQ and their impact on building occupants, which was sourced from different databases such as ScienceDirect, Taylor, GoogleScholar and Web of Science.

The findings from the 90 selected articles revealed four critical factors influencing the quality of the indoor environment and are categorised into; indoor air quality, indoor thermal comfort, visual comfort and acoustic comfort. The findings suggested that when developing a system for controlling the quality of the indoor environment, the indoor air quality, indoor thermal comfort, visual comfort and acoustic comfort should be taken into account.

The indoor environment deeply impacts the health of individuals in their living and work environments. Industry must have a moral responsibility to provide health facilities in which people and workers feel satisfies and give conditions for prosperity. Addressing these essential aspects will not only help the decision-making process of construction professionals but also encourages innovative construction techniques that will enhance the satisfaction, wellness and performance of building occupants.