Errors in children's subtraction

Many of the errors that occur in children' subtraction are due to the use of incorrect strategies rather than to the incorrect recall of number facts. A production system is presented for performing written subtraction which is consistent with an earlier analysis of the nature of such a cognitive skill. Most of the incorrect strategies used by schoolchildren can be accounted for in a principled way by simple changes in the production system, such as the omission of individual rules or the inclusion of rules appropriate to other arithmetical tasks. The production system model is evaluated against a corpus of over 1500 subtraction problems done by 10-year olds and is shown to account for about two-thirds of the (nonnumber fact) errors. It also provides an alternative, simpler interpretation of the subtraction errors analysed by Brown and Burton (1978). Some implications for teaching are discussed.     

Tactile perception and the right hemisphere: A masculine superiority for imagery coding

Recent research regarding hemispheric lateralization has suggested complex interactions among observed asymmetries, subject coding strategies, and sex differences in the utilization of and access to information codes. Prior to tactile perception of ambiguous figures, subjects were instructed to use either a verbal (left hemisphere) or imagery (right hemisphere) strategy. A non-instruction control group was included. Although a significant overall relationship between instructed strategy and tactile asymmetries was observed, this largely was due to males' privileged access to right-hemisphere imagery codes.     

Interaction between pedestrians and automated vehicles: A Wizard of Oz experiment

Automated vehicles (AVs) will be introduced on public roads in the future, meaning that traditional vehicles and AVs will be sharing the urban space. There is currently little knowledge about the interaction between pedestrians and AVs from the point of view of the pedestrian in a real-life environment. Pedestrians may not know with which type of vehicle they are interacting, potentially leading to stress and altered crossing decisions. For example, pedestrians may show elevated stress and conservative crossing behavior when the AV driver does not make eye contact and performs a non-driving task instead. It is also possible that pedestrians assume that an AV would always yield (leading to short critical gaps). This study aimed to determine pedestrians’ crossing decisions when interacting with an AV as compared to when interacting with a traditional vehicle. We performed a study on a closed road section where participants (N = 24) encountered a Wizard of Oz AV and a traditional vehicle in a within-subject design. In the Wizard of Oz setup, a fake ‘driver’ sat on the driver seat while the vehicle was driven by the passenger by means of a joystick. Twenty scenarios were studied regarding vehicle conditions (traditional vehicle, ‘driver’ reading a newspaper, inattentive driver in a vehicle with “self-driving” sign on the roof, inattentive driver in a vehicle with “self-driving” signs on the hood and door, attentive driver), vehicle behavior (stopping vs. not stopping), and approach direction (left vs. right). Participants experienced each scenario once, in a randomized order. This allowed assessing the behavior of participants when interacting with AVs for the first time (no previous training or experience). Post-experiment interviews showed that about half of the participants thought that the vehicle was (sometimes) driven automatically. Measurements of the participants’ critical gap (i.e., the gap below which the participant will not attempt to begin crossing the street) and self-reported level of stress showed no statistically significant differences between the vehicle conditions. However, results from a post-experiment questionnaire indicated that most participants did perceive differences in vehicle appearance, and reported to have been influenced by these features. Future research could adopt more fine-grained behavioral measures, such as eye tracking, to determine how pedestrians react to AVs. Furthermore, we recommend examining the effectiveness of dynamic AV-to-pedestrian communication, such as artificial lights and gestures.     

Associations between self-reported mindfulness,driving anger and aggressive driving

Anger and aggression on the roads is associated with how drivers evaluate the driving situation and the behaviour of other drivers. Consequently, both can be exacerbated when these evaluations are made superficially and/or when drivers have pre-existing negative schemas regarding certain types of road situations or users. Mindfulness is likely to have negative associations with anger and aggression because it promotes opposing appraisals. That is, it encourages emotion-regulation and involves acceptance of, but not reaction to, the current situation. To examine these associations, a total of 309 drivers responded to an online questionnaire assessing mindfulness, driving anger and aggressive driving. The results showed that mindfulness shared negative relationships with driving anger and self-reported aggressive driving. However, when these relationships were examined simultaneously using Structural Equation Modelling, mindfulness was found to relate only to anger and this, in turn, predicted aggressive driving. Further analysis showed that driving anger mediates the relationship between mindfulness and aggressive driving. These results suggest that mindfulness training may provide a promising intervention for drivers prone to driving anger and subsequent aggression.     

An illumination robust road detection method based on color names and geometric information

Road detection is a basic task in automated driving field. In existing methods, detecting lane marks is a frequently used approach. However, road marks could fade with time, or even do not exist on some roads. Considering these factors, road region segmentation from background is much more reliable. One of the difficulties in this area is dealing with variant illumination conditions. Existing methods make some progress on reducing the influence of shadows, but they are still not satisfactory. Taking this into account, we put forward an improved shadow-free road detecting method based on color names, whose performance exceeds the existing methods. In addition, to further improving our performance on application, we adopt vanishing point detection and fuse two confidence maps to reduce the interference of sidewalk regions. Experiments on KITTI dataset depict that the proposed method is efficient. Moreover, the improved road detection method has low-complexity, which meets the requirement of practical usage.     

Ergonomic Design Improves Cross-Cultural Road Sign Comprehension

BackgroundTraffic sign design can have a substantial impact on road safety and traffic flow. The current study had three objectives: 1) Cross-validate the importance of ergonomic sign design; 2) Evaluate the ability of ergonomics experts to predict sign comprehension by the average driver; 3) Offer improved sign designs for poorly designed road signs. In a previous study (Ben Bassat et al., 2019), human factors and ergonomics experts evaluated several alternative designs for 31 different road signs, based on three ergonomics criteria – familiarity, standardization, and message/symbol compatibility. Some of these signs were tested in the current study and the correlation between the results of the two studies was analyzed.MethodIn this study, 805 licensed drivers from five countries were tested on their comprehension of 24 conventional signs and 32 alternative signs. Signs were individually presented on a screen and as soon as the participant decided on the meaning, the sign disappeared, and an experimenter wrote the stated meaning. The verbal responses were coded as correct (perfectly or partially), wrong, or opposite of the true meaning. Sign identification response time was also recorded.ResultsIn all countries across all signs, more drivers comprehended the alternative ergonomically superior signs, and the identification response times were shorter for these sign designs. Furthermore, the correlation between ergonomics experts' ratings as found in previous study and the percent of comprehension for each sign design was statistically significant and positive with r = 0.61.ConclusionsRoad signs should be designed according to ergonomics-based criteria. Human factors experts' opinions can be a useful tool in improving the design of poorly comprehended signs (or icons) and in designing new signs (or icons).     

Acceptance of visual and audio interventions for distracted pedestrians

Distraction from mobile devices increases pedestrian risks at intersections. Innovative interventions are currently installed at road and rail intersections to alert pedestrians. These interventions will be effective only if pedestrians modify their behaviour. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) posits that behaviour changes as a result of behavioural intention, which is affected by perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. However, the link between intention and actual behaviour is often overlooked. The current study aims to investigate this link and apply this theoretical framework to interventions for distracted pedestrians. We conducted a day-time field study at three railway level crossings in New Zealand with such interventions reminding pedestrians to look for trains: in-ground flashing lights located at footpath level, an audio warning message, and in-ground flashing lights combined with the audio warning message. Participants (N = 34, Mean age 33.6, SD = 8.6 years) walked through level crossings while performing a distractor task (visual and auditory distraction) or when not distracted. Actively checking for trains from both sides of the crossing was used as a measure of actual behaviour. All three interventions were perceived as useful (5.1 ± 0.4) and easy to use (5.6 ± 0.2) and resulted in positive intention to use the technology (5.8 ± 0.3). Statistical analyses confirmed that the TAM constructs - particularly perceived usefulness - affected intention, and intentions lead to behavioural change with improved crossing behaviours. This study highlights the importance of perceived usefulness and intentions to use the interventions with reducing distracted pedestrian behaviours.     

Car-following behavioural adaptation when driving next to automated vehicles on a dedicated lane on motorways: A driving simulator study in the Netherlands

Automated vehicles (AVs) are expected to improve traffic flow efficiency and safety. The deployment of AVs on motorways is expected to be the first step in their implementation. One of the main concerns is how human drivers will interact with AVs. Dedicating specific lanes to AVs have been suggested as a possible solution. However, there is still a lack of evidence-based research on the consequence of dedicated lanes for AVs on human drivers’ behavior. To bridge this research gap, a driving simulator experiment was conducted to investigate the behavior of human drivers exposed to different road design configurations of dedicated lanes on motorways. The experiment sample consisted of 34 (13 female) licensed drivers in the age range of 20–30. A repeated measures ANOVA was applied, which revealed that the type of separation between the dedicated lane and the other lanes has a significant influence on the behavior of human drivers driving in the proximity of AV platoons. Human drivers maintained a significantly lower time headway (THW) when driving in the proximity of a continuous access dedicated lane as compared to a limited-access dedicated lane with a guardrail separation for AV platoons. A similar result was found for the limited-access dedicated lane in comparison to the limited-access dedicated lane with guardrail separation. Moreover, the results regarding the empirical relationships between THW and sociodemographic variables indicate a significant THW difference between males and females as well as a significant inverse relationship between THW and the years of driving experience.