Eye movements and brain oscillations to symbolic safety signs with different comprehensibility.

Yohana Siswandari,Shuping Xiong

doi:10.1186/s40101-015-0081-3

Abstract

BackgroundThe aim of this study was to investigate eye movements and brain oscillations to symbolic safety signs with different comprehensibility.MethodsForty-two young adults participated in this study, and ten traffic symbols consisting of easy-to-comprehend and hard-to-comprehend signs were used as stimuli. During the sign comprehension test, real-time eye movements and spontaneous brain activity [electroencephalogram (EEG) data] were simultaneously recorded.ResultsThe comprehensibility level of symbolic traffic signs significantly affects eye movements and EEG spectral power. The harder to comprehend the sign is, the slower the blink rate, the larger the pupil diameter, and the longer the time to first fixation. Noticeable differences on EEG spectral power between easy-to-comprehend and hard-to-comprehend signs are observed in the prefrontal and visual cortex of the human brain.ConclusionsSign comprehensibility has significant effects on real-time nonintrusive eye movements and brain oscillations. These findings demonstrate the potential to integrate physiological measures from eye movements and brain oscillations with existing evaluation methods in assessing the comprehensibility of symbolic safety signs.

Highlights

The aim of this study was to investigate eye movements and brain oscillations to symbolic safety signs with different comprehensibility
Analysis of variance (ANOVA) results showed that the guessability score differed significantly among different signs [F(9,41) = 321.09, p < 0.001], and Bonferroni post hoc grouping analysis showed two different groups (A for easy-to-comprehend signs; B for hard-to-comprehend signs) in terms of comprehensibility
The guessability scores for good signs were all higher than 97 %, and the Guessability score (%)

Summary

Introduction

The aim of this study was to investigate eye movements and brain oscillations to symbolic safety signs with different comprehensibility. The safety sign comprehension process itself can be regarded as a part of the “communications–human information processing” or C-HIP model (Fig. 1) established by Wogalter et al [1]. This model is a framework which describes the stages involved as information flows from a source to a receiver, who will process the information, and subsequently produces behavior. Another study by Kirmizioglu and Tuydes-Yaman [3] reported that one major factor affecting safe driving is the comprehensibility of traffic signs by drivers. Comprehensibility of safety signs should be ensured prior to being implemented in various public places

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