Human-centric building life cycle management with electroencephalogram (EEG) approaches: A review

The built environment plays a fundamental role in shaping human life and functioning. As key stakeholders throughout the building life cycle, humans both influence and are influenced by the built environment. Recently, there has been growing interest in human-centric approaches aimed at enhancing productivity, safety, and user experience. Among various methods for studying human factors in buildings, electroencephalography (EEG) has emerged as a powerful tool for capturing the real-time cognitive states. EEG provides valuable insights into critical issues such as mental fatigue, stress, attention, and emotional responses, with applications in safety management, work efficiency, decision-making, and occupant comfort. This paper first reviews fundamental EEG technologies and signal processing methodologies. Subsequently, by examining applications across distinct phases of the building life cycle, we evaluate EEG’s potential applications and practical implementations in human-centric building research, synthesizing current advancements in study topics and experimental designs. Moreover, we identify the critical challenges hindering EEG adoption in building lifecycle management and propose practical mitigation strategies. The findings contribute to advancing the use of EEG in building life cycle management and provide valuable insights into how EEG can enhance building design, operation, and occupant satisfaction.