Some followup links:
Emergency and Continuous Exposure Guidance Levels for Selected Submarine Contaminants, National Research Council (2007), chapter 3 "Carbon Dioxide"; many negative mental and physical effects at extremely high CO2 concentrations >50000PPM; consistent statistically-significant effects below that tend to be harder to find but from the descriptions, they often were not using sensitive tests of higher cognitive functioning, a broad array of different measurements, and very small sample sizes; I suspect a meta-analysis grouping tasks by domain with some correction for ceiling effects might turn in a very different conclusion than their fairly sanguine conclusion that there are no cognitive impairments <40000PPM and <25000PPM is a perfectly safe limit. (Oddly enough, I came across this book on an anti-global-warming site; apparently Satish et al 2012 is really just global warming propaganda scare tactics, because the Navy has proven that CO2 is perfectly safe.) Cited for cognitive effects:
- Brown, E.W. 1930. "The physiological effects of high concentrations of carbon dioxide". U.S. Naval Med. Bull. 28:721-934 (as cited in NRC 1996).
- Consolazio, W.B., M.B. Fisher, N. Pace, L.J. Pecora, and A.R. Behnke. 1947. "Effects on man of high concentration of carbon dioxide in relation to various oxygen pressures during exposures as long as 72 hours". Am. J. Physiol. 151:479-503 (as cited in NRC 1996).
- Gellhorn, E., and I. Spiesman. 1934. "Influence of variations of O2 and CO2 tension in inspired air upon hearing". Proc. Soc. Exp. Biol. Med. 32:46-47.
- Gellhorn, E., and I. Spiesman. 1935. "Influence of hypercapnea and of variations of O2- and CO2-tension in inspired air upon hearing". Am. J. Physiol. 112:519-528 (as cited in NRC 1996)
- Glatte, Jr., H.A., G.J. Motsay, and B.E. Welch. 1967. "Carbon Dioxide Tolerance Studies". Rep. No. SAM-TR-67-77. Aerospace Medical Division, USAF School of Aerospace Medicine, Brooks Air Force Base, San Antonio, TX (as cited in NRC 1996).
- Menn, S.J., R.D. Sinclair, and B.E. Welch. 1970. "Effect of inspired pCO2 up to 30 mm Hg on response of normal man to exercise". J. Appl. Physiol. 28(5):663-671 (as cited in NRC 1996).
- Radziszewski, E., L. Giacomoni, and R. Guillerm. 1988. "Effets physiologiques chez l’homme du confinement du longue duree en atmosphere enrichie en dioxyde de carbone". Pp. 19-23 in Proceedings of the Colloquium on Space and Sea [in French]. European Space Agency, Brussels, Belgium (as cited in NRC 1996).
- Schaefer, K.E. 1961. "A concept of triple tolerance limits based on chronic carbon dioxide toxicity studies". Aeromed. Acta. 32:197-204.
- Schneider, E.C., and D. Truesdale. 1922. "The effects on the circulation and respiration of a increase in carbon dioxide content of the blood in man". Am. J. Physiol. 63:155-175 (as cited in NRC 1996).
- Sinclair, R.D., J.M. Clark, and B.E. Welch. 1969. "Carbon dioxide tolerance levels for space cabins". Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference on Atmospheric Contamination in Confined Spaces, September 16-18, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, OH.
- Sinclair, R.D., J.M. Clark, and B.E. Welch. 1971. "Comparison of physiological responses of normal man to exercise in air and in acute and chronic hypercapnia". Pp. 409-417 in Underwater Physiology, C.J. Lambertsen, ed. New York: Academic Press. [can download book from Libgen if Google Books link doesn't work]
- Storm, W.F., and C.L. Giannetta. 1974. "Effects of hypercapnia and bedrest on psychomotor performance". Aerosp. Med. 45(4):431-433.
- Sun, M., C. Sun, and Y. Yang. 1996. "Effect of low-concentration CO2 on stereoacuity and energy expenditure". Aviat. Space Environ. Med. 67(1):34-39.
- Wamsley, J.R., E.W. Youngling, and W.F. Behm. 1969. "High fidelity simulations in the evaluation of environmental stress: Acute CO2 exposure". Aerospace Med. 40:1336-1340 (as cited in NRC 1996).
- Yang, Y., S. Changnian, and M. Sun. 1997. "The effect of moderately increased CO2 concentration on perception of coherent motion". Aviat. Space Environ. Med. 68(3):187-19.1
More:
One or two research groups have published work on carbon dioxide and cognition. The state of the published literature is confusing.
Here is one paper on the topic. The authors investigate a proprietary cognitive benchmark, and experimentally manipulate carbon dioxide levels (without affecting other measures of air quality). They find implausibly large effects from increased carbon dioxide concentrations.
If the reported effects are real and the suggested interpretation is correct, I think it would be a big deal. To put this in perspective, carbon dioxide concentrations in my room vary between 500 and 1500 ppm depending on whether I open the windows. The experiment reports on cognitive effects for moving from 600 and 1000 ppm, and finds significant effects compared to interindividual differences.
I haven't spent much time looking into this (maybe 30 minutes, and another 30 minutes to write this post). I expect that if we spent some time looking into indoor CO2 we could have a much better sense of what was going on, by some combination of better literature review, discussion with experts, looking into the benchmark they used, and just generally thinking about it.
So, here's a proposal:
Some clarifications:
(Thanks to Andrew Critch for mentioning these results to me and Jessica Taylor for lending me a CO2 monitor so that I could see variability in indoor CO2 levels. I apologize for deliberately not doing my homework on this post.)