Fixation distance and fixation duration to vertical road signs

Marco Costa; Andrea Simone; Valeria Vignali; Claudio Lantieri; Nicola Palena

doi:10.1016/j.apergo.2017.12.017

Fixation distance and fixation duration to vertical road signs

Appl Ergon. 2018 May:69:48-57. doi: 10.1016/j.apergo.2017.12.017. Epub 2018 Jan 12.

Authors

Marco Costa¹, Andrea Simone², Valeria Vignali³, Claudio Lantieri⁴, Nicola Palena⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, Viale Berti Pichat, 5, 40127 Bologna, Italy. Electronic address: marco.costa@unibo.it.
² Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental and Material Engineering, University of Bologna, Viale Risorgimento, 2, 40136 Bologna, Italy. Electronic address: andrea.simone@unibo.it.
³ Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental and Material Engineering, University of Bologna, Viale Risorgimento, 2, 40136 Bologna, Italy. Electronic address: valeria.vignali@unibo.it.
⁴ Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental and Material Engineering, University of Bologna, Viale Risorgimento, 2, 40136 Bologna, Italy. Electronic address: claudio.lantieri2@unibo.it.
⁵ Department of Human and Social Sciences, University of Bergamo, Piazzale Sant'Agostino, 24129 Bergamo, Italy. Electronic address: nicola.palena@unibg.it.

PMID: 29477330
DOI: 10.1016/j.apergo.2017.12.017

Abstract

The distance of first-fixation to vertical road signs was assessed in 22 participants while driving a route of 8.34 km. Fixations to road signs were recorded by a mobile eye-movement-tracking device synchronized to GPS and kinematic data. The route included 75 road signs. First-fixation distance and fixation duration distributions were positively skewed. Median distance of first-fixation was 51 m. Median fixation duration was 137 ms with a modal value of 66 ms. First-fixation distance was linearly related to speed and fixation duration. Road signs were gazed at a much closer distance than their visibility distance. In a second study a staircase procedure was used to test the presentation-time threshold that lead to a 75% accuracy in road sign identification. The threshold was 35 ms, showing that short fixations to a road signs could lead to a correct identification.

Keywords: Driver perception; Eye movements; First-fixation distance; Fixation duration; Road signs; Speed.

MeSH terms

Adult
Automobile Driving / psychology*
Distance Perception / physiology*
Eye Movement Measurements
Female
Fixation, Ocular / physiology*
Humans
Male
Reaction Time / physiology*
Visual Fields
Visual Perception