Abstract
It is expected that the detection of peripheral objects, a key visual task for safe driving, is affected by cognitive distraction, by observer age and by the manner in which action is undertaken following detection. An experiment was conducted to measure these effects, using a fixation cross and peripheral target discs displayed on a screen. The experiment was repeated with young (18–25 years) and old (60+years) age groups, with six distraction tasks, and with simple and choice response modes. The older group was found to respond more slowly than the younger group and detected fewer targets. The results suggest that distraction impairs detection, with the degree of impairment depending on the difficulty of the distraction task. Participants were generally slower at responding with choice response but this did not lead to a greater number of missed targets. Where lighting standards are informed by the ability to detect peripheral hazards, the research should represent older people, choice responses and impaired detection due to distraction.
Highlights
IntroductionRoad lighting Hazard visibility when driving is an important factor in the prevalence of road traffic collisions (RTCs).[1] There is a deterioration in drivers’ visual performance afterdark, resulting in, for example, losses in contrast sensitivity and motion-based perception.[2] A key purpose of road lighting is to offset this deterioration in vision and improve drivers’ ability to detect potential hazards
With the fixation cross being located in the centre of the quadrant marked by the four peripheral target locations, and with target presentation at each location being randomised, there would be no benefit in moving the direction of gaze towards any one target location
Mean reaction time (RT) for the group using the choice response are longer than those for the group using the simple response: this difference is larger for control and n0 distraction tasks than for the other four distraction tasks
Summary
Road lighting Hazard visibility when driving is an important factor in the prevalence of road traffic collisions (RTCs).[1] There is a deterioration in drivers’ visual performance afterdark, resulting in, for example, losses in contrast sensitivity and motion-based perception.[2] A key purpose of road lighting is to offset this deterioration in vision and improve drivers’ ability to detect potential hazards. It is, important for research to identify the optimal lighting conditions in which to support drivers’ hazard perception. The probability of detection is characterised as either detection rate (DR), the proportion of targets which were correctly detected, or error rate (ER), the proportion of targets which were not correctly detected
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