Year: 2007
Type: dissertation
Abstract: In this road-crossing simulation study, we assessed participant's ability to visually judge whether or not they could cross a road, and their adaptive walking behaviour.To this end, participants were presented with a road inside the laboratory on which a bike approached with different velocities from different distances.Eight children aged 5 to 7 years, ten children aged 10 to 12 years, and ten adults were asked both to verbally judge whether they could cross the road, and to actually walk across the road if possible.The results indicated that the verbal judgements were not similar to judgements to actually cross the road.With respect to safety and accuracy of judgements, groups did not differ from each other, although the youngest group tended to be more cautious.All groups appeared to use a strategy to cross the road based both on the distance and the velocity of the approaching bike.Young children waited longer on the kerb before crossing the road than older children and adults.All groups adjusted their crossing time to the timeto-arrival of the bike.These findings are discussed in relation to the ecological psychological approach and the putative dissociation between vision for perception (i.e.verbal judgement) and vision for action (i.e.actual crossing).
Author: Arenda F. te Velde
Language: English
Topic: Traffic and Road Safety
Subfield: Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2150061954