Standing and Walking Attention Visual Field (SWAVF) task: A new method to assess visuospatial attention during walking

Jing Yuan; Xiaolu Bai; Brendan Driscoll; Ming Liu; He Huang; Jing Feng

doi:10.1016/j.apergo.2022.103804

Standing and Walking Attention Visual Field (SWAVF) task: A new method to assess visuospatial attention during walking

Appl Ergon. 2022 Oct:104:103804. doi: 10.1016/j.apergo.2022.103804. Epub 2022 May 27.

Authors

Jing Yuan¹, Xiaolu Bai², Brendan Driscoll³, Ming Liu⁴, He Huang⁵, Jing Feng⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, North Carolina State University, NC, USA. Electronic address: jyuan7@ncsu.edu.
² Department of Psychology, North Carolina State University, NC, USA. Electronic address: xbai23@ncsu.edu.
³ Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering, North Carolina State University, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, NC, USA. Electronic address: bhdrisco@ncsu.edu.
⁴ Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering, North Carolina State University, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, NC, USA. Electronic address: mliu10@ncsu.edu.
⁵ Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering, North Carolina State University, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, NC, USA. Electronic address: hhuang11@ncsu.edu.
⁶ Department of Psychology, North Carolina State University, NC, USA. Electronic address: jing_feng@ncsu.edu.

PMID: 35635940
DOI: 10.1016/j.apergo.2022.103804

Abstract

Visuospatial attention during walking has been associated with pedestrian safety and fall risks. However, visuospatial attention measures during walking remained under-explored. Current studies introduced a newly-developed Standing and Walking Visual Attention Field (SWAVF) task to assess visuospatial attention during walking and examined its reliability, validity, and stability. Thirty young adults completed a traditional computerized Attention Visual Field (AVF) task while sitting, and the SWAVF task under walking and standing settings. Nine participants also performed the SWAVF task under additional distraction conditions. Results showed good split-half reliability during standing (r = 0.70) and walking (r = 0.69), moderate concurrent validity with the sitting AVF task (r = 0.42), moderate convergent validity between the standing and walking settings (r = 0.69), good construct validity, and moderate rank-order stability (r = 0.53). Overall, the SWAVF task showed good psychometric properties. Potential applications to the evaluation of prosthetic and other exoskeleton devices, smart glasses, and ground-level traffic lights or signs were discussed.

Keywords: Measurement; Visuospatial attention; Walking.

MeSH terms

Humans
Reproducibility of Results
Sitting Position
Standing Position
Visual Fields*
Walking*
Young Adult