Home // International Journal On Advances in Systems and Measurements, volume 17, numbers 3 and 4, 2024 // View article
Authors:
Jordan Solt
Jerome Dinet
Muneo Kitajima
Aurelie Mailloux
Samuel Ferreira Da Silva
Gaelle Nicolas
Keywords: Child; Pedestrian; Visual exploration; Risk; Hazard; Eye-Tracking; Drawing; Perceived risks
Abstract:
Pedestrian trauma represents a significant propor- tion of all road traumas, young pedestrian being over-represented in all these road traumas. From a cognitive point of view, road crossing ability is a high and complex mental activity because the individual has to process dynamic and complex information extracted from his/her surrounding environment, to make a decision (i.e., where and how to cross), and safe pedestrians must possess and utilize advanced cognitive skills. More precisely, there are two major problems for young pedestrians to make the decision about when and where it is safe to cross the street: gap selection and assessment of inter-vehicular gap. A first study conducted with forty children aged 3-10 years and twenty-two adults has been conducted to investigate the impact of one individual factor (Age) and one environmental factor (Traffic density) on decision making (i.e., “to cross” or “not to cross a street”), time spent to make decision (in milliseconds) and on visual exploration using eye-tracking techniques of urban scenes displayed on a computerized screen. Main results showed that (i) Traffic density has a significant impact on performance and visual exploration, (ii) Age has a significant impact on time spent to make decision and visual exploration and (iii) there is an interaction between Age and Traffic density. A second study, based on drawings performed by 125 young pedestrian provided relevant qualitative and subjective data to complete data issued from the first experiment based on eye-tracking technique. The children’s drawings are more elaborate and richer (in terms of the number of elements represented) as the real accident risk in their environment increases. Not only does the number of elements in the drawings increase quantitatively, but these elements are more closely linked to each other, to the point where they form a real scene. The mental representation becomes more and more precise, and the egocentric perspective is dominant, this result being consistent with the Piagetian approach to the development of intelligence for children.
Pages: 96 to 110
Copyright: Copyright (c) to authors, 2024. Used with permission.
Publication date: December 30, 2024
Published in: journal
ISSN: 1942-261x