Older drivers’ visual search behaviour at intersections

Previous research has indicated that older drivers are more likely to be involved in collisions in complex traffic scenarios like intersections even if they are not more involved in accidents in general. Moreover, being more vulnerable, the older driver is generally at higher risk of sustaining an injury when involved in a traffic accident. Even though there may be many factors leading to the over-involvement of older drivers in intersection collisions it is clear that the visual capacity and the ability to observe may be one of the possible causes that is of high interest to understand further. The objective of the study is to identify to what degree the visual behaviour could explain older drivers’ involvement in intersection accidents. A 20 km long route composed by intersections in rural and urban environment was selected to collect both driving and eye movement data. Two groups of drivers were compared, one group aged 35–55 years and one aged 75 and above. Apart from the driving data, neck flexibility measurement was performed. The results from the neck flexibility measurement showed a clear age effect, with the older drivers showing less neck flexibility. When it comes to visual behaviour data, a difference was also found concerning the area of interest the drivers looked at; while the older drivers looked more at lines and markings on the road to position themselves in the traffic, the younger drivers looked more at dynamic objects such as other cars representing a possible threat. The difference in the visual behaviour should be used to design safety systems for all drivers to support them when they drive through an intersection.     

The nudging effect of social norms on drivers’ yielding behaviour when turning corners

Drivers who do not give way to pedestrians are among the main causes of traffic crashes of motor vehicles and pedestrians in China. There is an urgent need to explore effective methods for improving drivers' yielding behaviour. This study used eight kinds of social norm slogans to nudge drivers’ yielding behaviour and explored the influence of pedestrian characteristics and situational factors on drivers’ decision-making regarding giving way when turning right. By analysing 254 valid questionnaires, it was found that compared with static norms, injunctive norms and dynamic + static norms, positively worded dynamic norms have a better nudging effect on drivers' yielding behaviour. The results of the conjoint analysis showed that social norms have the greatest impact on drivers' decisions to yield (32.28%), followed by whether pedestrians comply with traffic rules (23.33%) and the age of pedestrians (18.40%). This study expands the application of social norms and provides a new perspective to promote positive behaviour among drivers.     

Situational specificity of trait influences on drivers’ evaluations and driving behaviour

This study explored the influence of anger and anxiety traits on driver evaluations and behaviour during a simulated drive. Forty-eight licensed drivers completed identical simulated driving tasks during which they rated levels of current anger, calmness and frustration or levels of danger, calmness and difficulty. Anxiety-prone drivers made higher difficultly evaluations and generally drove more cautiously. Anger-prone drivers gave higher ratings of anger and frustration, but their evaluations and anger tendencies were unrelated to their general driving behaviours. When driving behaviours in high and low anger-provoking situations were contrasted, in low anger-provoking situations, drivers higher in trait anger reported more anger and frustration and also drove faster and with more sideward movement. When driving situations were considered separately, although not overall, behaviour and evaluations were related: when forced to move sideward, drivers reported more frustration; when forced to drive more slowly, they reported more anger, and subsequently increased acceleration, throttle pressure and steering wheel use. These relationships were not moderated by trait anger. Irrespective of trait anger, drivers become angry when impeded, or in other anger-provoking situations, only drivers with high trait anger become angry and behaved aggressively in circumstances most would not consider provocative.     

The effect of context and drivers’ age on highway traffic signs comprehension

Background: Comprehension of traffic signs is crucial to safety. Objectives: To test the effects of the presentation condition (with or without driving context) on symbolic based road signs comprehension and comprehension time for young and older drivers. Method: 50 young drivers and 50 older drivers were presented with images of 28 Israeli road signs, both without context (with a white background) and in context (with the driving surrounding). Data were collected on the accuracy of signs meaning and on the time it took the participants to provide the meaning. Results: Younger drivers performed significantly better than older drivers on both accuracy and response time (RT). Older drivers’ average RT was approximately twice as long as younger drivers’ RT. However, the presentation mode (with or without context) did not affect sign comprehension of either group, but the presence of the context did increase the time it took the drivers to comprehend the sign’s meaning. In addition, correct response time was similar to opposite to sign’s meaning response time. Implications: Older drivers, can benefit from retraining in sign comprehension of current signage. The training should involve signs in their natural road environment to reduce comprehension time while actually driving. Moreover, signs that were understood as having an opposite meaning should be redesigned or be accompanied by text.     

The effect of drivers’ eye contact on pedestrians’ perceived safety

Many fatal accidents that involve pedestrians occur at road crossings, and are attributed to a breakdown of communication between pedestrians and drivers. Thus, it is important to investigate how forms of communication in traffic, such as eye contact, influence crossing decisions. Thus far, there is little information about the effect of drivers’ eye contact on pedestrians’ perceived safety to cross the road. Existing studies treat eye contact as immutable, i.e., it is either present or absent in the whole interaction, an approach that overlooks the effect of the timing of eye contact. We present an online crowdsourced study that addresses this research gap. 1835 participants viewed 13 videos of an approaching car twice, in random order, and held a key whenever they felt safe to cross. The videos differed in terms of whether the car yielded or not, whether the car driver made eye contact or not, and the times when the driver made eye contact. Participants also answered questions about their perceived intuitiveness of the driver’s eye contact behavior. The results showed that eye contact made people feel considerably safer to cross compared to no eye contact (an increase in keypress percentage from 31% to 50% was observed). In addition, the initiation and termination of eye contact affected perceived safety to cross more strongly than continuous eye contact and a lack of it, respectively. The car’s motion, however, was a more dominant factor. Additionally, the driver’s eye contact when the car braked was considered intuitive, and when it drove off, counterintuitive. In summary, this study demonstrates for the first time how drivers’ eye contact affects pedestrians’ perceived safety as a function of time in a dynamic scenario and questions the notion in recent literature that eye contact in road interactions is dispensable. These findings may be of interest in the development of automated vehicles (AVs), where the driver of the AV might not always be paying attention to the environment.     

Effects of route familiarity on drivers’ psychological conditions: Based on driving behaviour and driving environment

Route familiarity affects a driver’s mental state and indirectly affects traffic safety; however, this important factor is easily overlooked. Previous research on route familiarity has only analysed psychological states in terms of unfamiliarity and familiarity, the influence of driving behaviour and driving environment on psychological states has been ignored. As a result, the mechanisms through which the route familiarity influence driver psychological states, and vice versa, are unclear. This study proposes a quantitative framework for studying driver psychological condition and route familiarity using experimental data from a real driving task and driving environment data. The experimental data included 1022 observations obtained by 23 participants over 7 consecutive trials on 6 unfamiliar experimental routes with large differences in scenarios; environmental data were automatically extracted after segmenting a driving video through the Dilated Residual NetWorks model. The results reveal that (1) the relationship between the driver’s psychological condition and route familiarity is not monotonic and is different for straight and turning sections; (2) the driver’s psychological condition is influenced by the visual scene elements and the type of road section, and the results of the multivariate regression analysis quantified the variability of the influence; and (3) unlike a majority of findings on distracted driving, our study suggest that the driver’s attention to the external environment in the urban distracted driving state will gradually approach a ‘distraction threshold’, and the time and size of the ‘distraction threshold’ are influenced by the driver. This study can further the development of urban traffic safety research and help urban designers plan and improve urban landscapes to ensure drivers maintain stable mental states when they drive.     

Examining the effect of visual treatments on truck drivers’ time-to-arrival judgments of motorcycles at T-intersections

An automobile–motorcycle crash most commonly results when an automobile pulls out of a side road into the path of an oncoming motorcycle and violates the motorcyclist’s right-of-way. One of the reasons for this could be that motorists misjudged the motorcycle arrival time. Motorcyclists are particularly vulnerable to injury in crashes with truck due to substantial differences in vehicle mass, protection degree and speed. We investigated truck drivers’ judgments of motorcycle time-to-arrival (TTA) across a number of visual treatments. Participants watched a series of video clips captured at a T-intersection, and they were instructed to respond by clicking the computer mouse at the time they estimated the front wheels of an oncoming vehicle (motorcycle or car) to reach the T-intersection. The results showed that, at long distance between the target motorcycle and the viewer, the motorcycle with daytime running headlights (DRH) was estimated to arrive sooner than the motorcycle whose motorcyclist wore a black helmet with a reflective sticker. However, the opposite is true at a short distance. We also found that a motorcyclist wearing a white helmet and riding a motorcycle with DRH, as well as a motorcyclist wearing a white helmet and white outfit, would improve truck drivers’ judgment with respect to motorcycle TTA. Consequently, truck drivers would be less likely to pull out into a small gap in front of a motorcycle, resulting in a higher safety margin for the motorcycle.     

Exploration of older drivers’ speeding behaviour

Speeding increases crash risk and resulting injury severity. Older drivers are at increased risk of injury due to frailty, at increased risk of crashing due to slower reaction times, and have less agility judging time and distance compared to younger drivers. However, there is little objective evidence about older drivers’ speeding behaviour. Cross-sectional data from older drivers living in the suburban outskirts of Sydney, Australia, were used to determine the proportion of drivers involved in speed events, and examine factors that may influence this behaviour. Driving speed was estimated in approximately one-second intervals using Global Positioning System (GPS) location. Speed events were defined as driving 1 km/h or more, with 3% tolerance, above a single speed limit, averaged over 30-s of travel. Driving data from one-week were recorded for 344 participants aged 75–94 years (median 80). The majority of participants (78%) were involved in a speed event. Speed events per participant ranged from zero to 186 (median 8). Younger participants, those living in rural areas, and those driving on familiar roads closer to home were more likely to be involved in speed events adjusted for distance driven. In addition, rural residents were more likely to be involved in speed events when they had not been a driver involved in a crash during the previous year compared to those involved in a crash. Measures of visual and cognitive function did not predict involvement with speed events per distance (p > 0.2). These findings are important for policy-makers and researchers addressing older drivers’ speeding to reduce the incidence of crashes and resulting fatalities and injuries. As no evidence was found for speeding being associated with functional decline, countermeasures to address speeding for other drivers seem likely to be relevant to older drivers.     

Women’s everyday mobility: Frightening situations and their impacts on travel behaviour

This paper investigates frightening situations women face in their everyday mobility. The focus is not on serious criminal offences but rather on all situations causing fear such as harassment and the influence on the travel behaviour of women. Two surveys were conducted in Austria in 2012 and 2013 to assess whether and how many women are affected and to get insights in locations of the incidents and the circumstances. The personal security aspects of different modes of transport are investigated. The results show that women who experienced frightening situations tend to avoid certain destinations or routes and travel modes more than other women. The results also confirm that women in general have constrained travel behaviour because of fear about their personal security. When it is impossible to change route or travel time e.g. due to personal restraints, or when simply no other transport mode is available, women are captives to use unwanted transport options, even when they have to reckon with frightening situations. The conclusions summarize that women’s personal security plays an important role in terms of travel behaviour and increased attention should be paid by authorities as well as city- and transport planners striving for sustainable built environments. As the share of affected women is high and it can be assumed that women are more often imperilled than men the questions arises, if this can be assimilated to unequal mobility opportunities, finally resulting in a social deficiency for women.     

How impressions of other drivers affect one’s behavior when merging lanes

In recent years, systems have been developed to realize automatic driving based on objective information such as the relative distance and relative speed between vehicles. However, humans still must drive in complex situations, for instance, when merging lanes. In such driving situations, it is possible that people make decisions based not only on objective information, but also on subjective information. This study examined how subjective information, specifically, a driver’s impression of the other vehicle, affects the decision to merge in front of or behind the other vehicle when merging lanes on a highway. Twenty participants (n_male = 10; n_female = 10; M_age = 43.92 [SD_age = 11.40]) joined two experiments, Days 1E and 2E, using a driving simulator. Two months after participating in Day 1E the participants joined Day 2E. In the Day 1E, they drove either on the merging lane or the main lane and merged lanes while considering the other vehicle driving along the adjacent lane. This experiment measured the probability that the participants drove in front of another vehicle upon merging, which is defined as “lead probability.” The Day 2E was similar to 1E, except for the manipulation of the participants’ impression of the other vehicle as being aggressive/cautious via acceleration/deceleration of the other vehicle, and through the contents of the instructions regarding the other vehicle’s driving characteristics. In the Day 2E, the participants were randomly assigned to two: Aggressive or Cautious conditions. As the result of comparing the lead probabilities, it was found that only when the participants were driving on the merging lane and had the impression that the other vehicle is aggressive, the impression lowered the lead probability. The result indicates that people make decisions based not only on objective information but also on subjective information for specific driving situations, such as merging lanes. These findings can help in the development of automated driving systems that allow safer merging.     

Supporting cooperative driving behaviour by technology – HMI solution,acceptance by drivers and effects on workload and driving behaviour

The paper compares and evaluates three different HMIs (Human Machine Interface) for an ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance System) supporting cooperative interactions between drivers while merging and turning left. In road traffic, cooperation means that drivers (cooperation partners) coordinate their driving behaviour in a way that they facilitate each other’s intended driving manoeuvres. An experimental study was conducted with 30 participants in a static high-end simulator. The test scenarios included merging onto a motorway and turning left at a rural intersection. As independent variables, the HMI (Baseline vs. Sensor vs. C2X (Car-to-everything)) was varied in addition to the cooperation situation (merging vs. turning left). All HMI variants were based on a HUD (Head-Up Display). In the Baseline condition, the HMI only showed information about speed and navigation. The Sensor HMI visualised additionally the driving situation as it can be detected by the vehicle's own sensors. The C2X HMI was based on C2X communication and also represented the different phases of manoeuvre coordination with the cooperation partner. The traffic flow and the behaviour of the surrounding traffic did not differ between the different HMI variants, in order to ensure that the traffic situation did not influence the participants’ evaluation of the HMI variants. The dependent variables included subjective (e.g. acceptance, usability) and objective measures (e.g. driving and gaze behaviour). The results showed that a system supporting cooperative interactions is generally accepted by drivers. The most preferred system was the C2X HMI. The advantages of a C2X based HMI were an improved user experience leading to a greater intent to use the ADAS for cooperative driving interactions, increased system trust, and an easier handling of the system. The workload of the C2X HMI did not exceed the level reported for the Baseline or the Sensor HMI – although the C2X HMI presented more information. The results are used to derive indications for the design of assistance systems supporting cooperative driving behaviour.     

An investigation of salespeople’s nonverbal behaviors and their effect on charismatic appearance and favorable consumer responses

The concept of charisma has gained considerable interest among social scientists in multiple disciplines. Nevertheless, research on charisma in the marketing field is scarce, and little is known about which specific nonverbal behaviors predict perceived charisma and lead to positive consumer responses. Therefore, the aim of this article is to identify nonverbal behaviors that lead to a salesperson’s perceived charisma in a personal selling context by means of high-precision, time-locked coding. This research explores aspects of body language that differentiate salespeople from each other and investigates whether such differences are antecedents of perceived charisma. The findings indicate that certain arm actions, arm postures, and action functions have a significant effect on charismatic appearance and can in turn produce favorable attitudes toward the salesperson.     

Velocity versus safety: Impact of goal conflict and task difficulty on drivers’ behaviour,feelings of anxiety,and electrodermal responses

This paper proposes a goal conflict model that links drivers’ conflicting motivations for fast and safe driving with an emotional state of anxiety. It is proposed that this linkage is mediated by a behavioural inhibition system (Gray & McNaughton, 2000) affecting drivers’ mood, physiological responses and choice of speed. The model was tested with 24 male participants, each of whom undertook 18 runs of a simple driving simulation. On each run, the goal conflict was induced by time pressure and the advance warning of a possible encounter with a deer. The conflict’s intensity varied depending on the magnitude of the equally-sized gain and loss assigned to early arrival and collision respectively. Results show that the larger the conflict, the more slowly the participants drove. In addition, they rated themselves as being more anxious, attentive, and aroused. An increase in task difficulty induced by low visibility resulted in an additional speed reduction and increase in self-reported anxiety but did not lead to a further increase in self-assessed attention and arousal. Overall, the number of electrodermal responses depended neither on conflict nor on task difficulty, but increased linearly with conflict during low visibility. Implications for the incorporation of goal conflict into theories on driving behaviour and conclusions for traffic safety policies are discussed.     

The effect of yellow light onset time on older and younger drivers’ perception response time (PRT) and intersection behavior

To understand why older drivers are over-represented in intersection crashes, this study sought to describe the intersection performance of older and younger drivers when traffic lights changed from green to yellow at the last second. Using a moderate-fidelity driving simulator, time to stop line (TSL) at yellow onset was manipulated as drivers approached intersections at 70 km/h (42 mph). Seventy-seven participants, approximately balanced for gender and age group, volunteered from the age categories of 18 to 24, 25 to 35, 55 to 64, and 65+. Driver decisions to stop or go were predicted using a logistic regression model with time to stop line as the single significant predictor. There were no age differences in perception response time (PRT). Older drivers approached intersections at a lower velocity and stopped more accurately than younger drivers. For those drivers who chose to go through the yellow light, speed profiles across the intersection and intersection clearance indicate that older drivers are more likely to be in the intersection when the light changed to red. A PRT of 1.0 s for yellow signal phasing was sufficient for all age groups.     

Getting mad may not mean getting even: The influence of drivers’ ethical ideologies on driving anger and related behaviour

The current study explored the influence of moral values (measured by ethical ideology) on self-reported driving anger and aggressive driving responses. A convenience sample of drivers aged 17–73 years (n = 280) in Queensland, Australia, completed a self-report survey. Measures included sensation seeking, trait aggression, driving anger, endorsement of aggressive driving responses and ethical ideology (Ethical Position Questionnaire, EPQ). Scores on the two underlying dimensions of the EPQ idealism (highI/lowI) and relativism (highR/lowR) were used to categorise drivers into four ideological groups: Situationists (highI/highR); Absolutists (highI/lowR); Subjectivists (lowI/highR); and Exceptionists (lowI/lowR). Mean aggressive driving scores suggested that exceptionists were significantly more likely to endorse aggressive responses. After accounting for demographic variables, sensation seeking and driving anger, ethical ideological category added significantly, though modestly to the prediction of aggressive driving responses. Patterns in results suggest that those drivers in ideological groups characterised by greater concern to avoid affecting others negatively (i.e. highI, Situationists, Absolutists) may be less likely to endorse aggressive driving responses, even when angry. In contrast, Subjectivists (lowI, HighR), reported the lowest levels of driving anger yet were significantly more likely to endorse aggressive responses. This provides further insight into why high levels of driving anger may not always translate into more aggressive driving.     

Implementation of automatic speed enforcement: Covariation with young drivers’ reported speeding behaviour and motivations

IntroductionSpeeding represents one of the main causes of road crashes worldwide, particularly among young drivers who are over-represented in road-crash statistics. For promoting road safety in France, an automatic speed enforcement (ASE) system was introduced late 2002.ObjectiveIn order to examine its efficiency on speeding and its motivations, we compared young drivers’ intentions and beliefs about speeding between the introduction of ASE (T1) and its completion in 2005 (T2) via a large survey based on the extended Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). We assumed the introduction of the ASE would covariate with a reduction in intention to speeding between T1 and T2 and a change in the extended TPB factors according to gender and driving experience.MethodOne thousand one hundred and ninety-two young participants (49.7% men) divided into novice, beginner, and more-experienced drivers filled in a questionnaire based on the extended TPB about their driving behaviour and history at T1 and 24 months later (T2).ResultsMen, beginner and more-experienced drivers expressed more intention to speeding within the next 12 months at T1 and showed a higher decrease in intention between T1 and T2 as compared to women and novice drivers. The extended TPB accounted for 59% of the variance in the decrease of the intention to speeding. Its main predictors were: lower perceived behavioural control over speeding, less social pressure, lower perceived similarity with the prototypical deviant driver, and higher comparative optimism. Secondly, slightly more positive behavioural beliefs and more negative outcome evaluations predicted this decrease.ConclusionPractical implications of the findings for road safety are discussed.     

The Craik-O’Brien-Cornsweet effect: New varieties and their theoretical implications

New visual displays related to the Craik-O’Brien-Cornsweet effect are presented and their relevance for theories of the effect is assessed. The displays include a luminance cusp that does not induce the standard effect, an illusory chessboard, a brightness variant of the impossible staircase, and a display in which brightness varies with stimulus motion. Theories of the effect are grouped within the nonisomorphistic, the cognitive, and the mechanistic approaches. The nonisomorphistic approach is criticized as being seriously incomplete. Existing cognitively oriented proposals are criticized as inadequate. Mechanistic theories are divided into integration theories, which model the visual processing stages with standard mathematical operations such as differentiation and integration, and filling-in theories, which stress the processing dynamics of interconnected neural networks. The reported variations of the Craik-O’Brien-Cornsweet effect support the latter class of theories.     

Management style and its effect on prison officers’ stress

This study investigates the impact of the work environment on the level of perceived job stress in prison officers. Two models of prison administration were assessed in an attempt to identify the organizational structures and processes which were related to level of occupational stress. To identify the impact of occupational stress on prison officers, the bureaucratic and unit management models of prison administration are compared with respect to officer job characteristics and management processes. The Occupational Role Questionnaire and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory were administered to 112 prison officers. A multivariate analysis identified a significant main effect for prison management type. On all measures, prison officers from the bureaucratic management model (Pentridge Prison) scored higher than officers from a unit management model (Barwon Prison). Role boundary, physical environment, and trait anxiety were the most salient discriminators between officers from Pentridge and Barwon. Private Practice.