at crossings without traffic controls
Gene Bourquin, Rob Wall, Dona Sauerburger
. . . . Influencing Driver Yielding Behavior
What conditions cause drivers to yield:
vests, flags, and cane, oh my?
. . . . Influencing Driver Yielding Behavior
Why driversyield?
. . . . Influencing Driver Yielding Behavior
Social theories and empirical research indicate
that dependency cues influence drivers
Harrell (1993)
. . . . Influencing Driver Yielding Behavior
Drivers yielded more readily to individuals perceived to be dependent: mothers with a carriage, people thought to have a physical disability, or people
who are blind.
. . . . Influencing Driver Yielding Behavior
(Bake & Reitz, 1978)
What driverssee
. . . . Influencing Driver Yielding Behavior
Attentional capture: a stimulus that alters
attention away from the prevailing focus…which draw a attention without
that person’s volition.
. . . . Influencing Driver Yielding Behavior
(Hughes, Vachon, & Jones, 2005)
(Mack, Pappas, Silverman, & Gay, 2002)
. . . . Influencing Driver Yielding Behavior
What’s in your attention set?
Inattentional Blindness: the phenomenon when items not expected, not of interest, or not meaningful are not perceived by the visual system.
. . . . Influencing Driver Yielding Behavior
(Ramachandran & Rogers-Ramachandran, 2005)
Conditions are likely to be noticed and understood
when attentional capture is high and inattentional
blindness in minimized.
. . . . Influencing Driver Yielding Behavior
What we knew aboutdrivers’ yielding
. . . . Influencing Driver Yielding Behavior
driver yielding for pedestrians approaching crosswalk at a roundabout: no white cane: 52% drivers with white cane: 63% drivers (Geruschat and Hassan, 2005)
. . . . Influencing Driver Yielding Behavior
driver yielding for pedestrians standing at roundabout crosswalks with a visible long white cane or dog (Ashmead, Guth, Wall, Long, & Ponchillia, 2005)
. . . . Influencing Driver Yielding Behavior
Entry lanes (slower): No cane / dog: 20% With cane / dog: 36.4%Exit lanes (faster): No cane / dog: 0% With cane / dog: 9%
(Ashmead, Guth, Wall, Long, & Ponchillia, 2005)
. . . . Influencing Driver Yielding Behavior
driver yielding for pedestrians standing at crosswalk with a visible long white cane or dog
(Guth, Ashmead, Long, Wall, & Ponchillia, 2005)
. . . . Influencing Driver Yielding Behavior
mid-block campus crossing: no cane/dog: 80% trials with cane/dog: 96% trial
(Guth, Ashmead, Long, Wall, & Ponchillia, 2005)
. . . . Influencing Driver Yielding Behavior
Uncontrolled crossing at downtown intersection (stop sign on intersecting street):
no cane/dog: 5% trials with cane/dog: 7% trials
(Guth, Ashmead, Long, Wall, & Ponchillia, 2005)
. . . . Influencing Driver Yielding Behavior
What we did What we found
. . . . Influencing Driver Yielding Behavior
. . . . Influencing Driver Yielding Behavior
P
C2
C1
X
. . . . Influencing Driver Yielding Behavior
375 trials
Control yielding rate: 0.41Flag 0.62Vest 0.49Cane 0.87Cane waive 0.89Cane waive vest 0.91
. . . . Influencing Driver Yielding Behavior
. . . . Influencing Driver Yielding Behavior
. . . . Influencing Driver Yielding Behavior
The main differences seen in yielding were across the crossing
conditions
. . . . Influencing Driver Yielding Behavior
Secondarily, vehicle approach speed most
critically impacted yielding
. . . . Influencing Driver Yielding Behavior
This study, along with previous studies, indicate a general
principle that using a cane will improve safety. A long cane is a well-known symbol that reduces inattention blindness through its
visibility and meaningfulness.
. . . . Influencing Driver Yielding Behavior
Mack, A., Pappas, Z., Silverman, M., & Gay, R. (2002). What we see: Inattention and the capture of attention by meaning. Consciousness and Cognition 11 (2002) 488–506, 2002(11).
Ashmead, D. H., Guth, D., Wall, R. S., Long, R. G., & Ponchillia, P. E. (2005). Street Crossing by Sighted and Blind Pedestrians at a Modern Roundabout. Journal of Transportation Engineering, 131(11), 812-821.
Baker, L. D., & Reitz, H. J. (1978). Altruism toward the blind: effects of sex of helper and dependency of victim. Journal of Social Psychology, 104(1), 19.
Guth, D., Ashmead, D., Long, R., Wall, R., & Ponchillia., P. (2005). Blind and Sighted Pedestrians' Judgments of Gaps in Traffic at Roundabouts. Human Factors, 47(2), 134(118).
Harrell, W. A. (1993). The Impact of Pedestrian Visibility and Assertiveness on Motorist Yielding. [Article]. Journal of Social Psychology, 133(3), 353-360.
Hughes, R. W., Vachon, F., & Jones, D. M. (2005). Auditory Attentional Capture During Serial Recall: Violations at Encoding of an Algorithm-Based Neural Model? Journal of Experimental Psychology / Learning, Memory & Cognition, 31(4), 736-749.
Ramachandran, V. S., & Rogers-Ramachandran, D. (2005). How Blind Are We? Scientific American Mind, 16(2), 96-95.