Relationship between speed perception and eye movement-A case study of crash-involved and crash-not-involved drivers in China.

Fuwei Wu,Rui Fu,Zhi Zhang,Chang Wang,Yong Ma,Quan Yuan

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0229650

Abstract

Speed perception tests are already used in several countries as part of the driver licensing curriculum; however, this test is not compulsively required in China. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between speed perception and eye movement for different driver groups. Forty-eight drivers, including 28 crash-involved (CI), with rear-end or side collisions, and 20 crash-not-involved (CNI) drivers, were recruited for the speed perception experiments. Drivers’ reaction characteristics as well as eye movement data were analyzed. The results showed that CI drivers were more likely to overestimate the speed of visual stimuli and react in advance. The speed perception of CI drivers was more accurate than that of CNI drivers for visual stimuli with middle to high moving speeds, indicating that CNI drivers are more cautious and conservative when driving. Regarding eye movement, significant differences in saccade speed were found between the CI and CNI drivers in the occlusion area under high speed and the occlusion ratio. The relationship between visual pattern and speed perception accuracy was found to some extent. Implications of the speed perception test for the driver aptitude test were discussed.

Highlights

Speed perception refers to the ability of people to estimate the speed of objects and is one of the prerequisites for safe driving in human factors engineering
The results showed that the proportion of the CNI drivers that reacted in advance was 35.1% ± 23.5%, while the advance action proportion of the CI drivers was 49.5% ± 29.6%
It is conceived that the slower the object speed and the longer the extrapolation interval, the greater the timing or localization error is [18]

Summary

Introduction

Speed perception refers to the ability of people to estimate the speed of objects and is one of the prerequisites for safe driving in human factors engineering. Drivers’ speed perception is composed of the perceived speed of their own vehicle and that of other objects. Drivers perceive the exact speed of their own vehicles mainly through the speedometer, but doing so causes their eyes to turn away from the road and increases the risk of accidents. Many drivers usually estimate the speed of their own vehicle according to the traffic environment. It is believed that misperception of the speed of their own vehicles is likely to cause speeding accidents. Drivers have to judge the speed of other traffic participants all the time and take appropriate actions to avoid potential collisions.

Objectives

Results

Conclusion