On the Influence of Walking on Hazard Detection for Prospective User-Centered Design of an Assistance System for Older Pedestrians

Abstract

As older pedestrians are at high risk of being involved in car crashes, an assistance system is currently under development. One of it’s aims is to encourage them to stop walking before looking for traffic. The approach was evaluated in two studies. Age group and motoric condition served as independent variables in both experiments. Experiment one was conducted in a pedestrian traffic simulation with a traffic related visual hazard detection task with simulated walking. Analysis revealed no age-specific dual-task costs for accuracy and response time. This unexpected result was ascribed to the insufficient operationalization of the walking task, which lacked important aspects of real walking such as requirements of keeping the balance. Therefore, experiment two, comprised real walking but a simple visual task. In the second experiment older participants missed more targets than younger. More important, number of errors increased as a function of motor load only for older participants. Response times were enhanced for older participants and faster for both groups while standing compared to walking. Results are discussed with regard to the development of an assistance systems for older pedestrians and theoretical implications for prospective user-centered experimental design.