Abstract. Public opinion is not always consistent with expert opinion. A nationwide CAWI research project was conducted in order to verify Polish drivers' opinion on roadside advertising and their experience concerning distraction and loss of situational awareness. Research results show that although many drivers have experienced partial loss of situational awareness, most of them are not convinced of the need to restrict roadside advertising. Nonetheless, on the basis of the results, we can identify the most distracting characteristics of roadside advertising as well as socially acceptable rule changes.
Sexual appeals are widely used in advertising to attract consumers’ attention. It has already been proved that they influence the addressee’s cognitive processing, which in turn raises the question if sexual appeals may pose a serious threat for road safety when used in roadside advertising. Three studies were designed to answer this question. Study I was a nationwide survey (N = 1095) which revealed that drivers subjectively perceive sexual contents in roadside advertising as distracting and dangerous. Study II was a modified version of the Attentional Network Test (N = 1063) which proved that in cognitive tasks reaction time increases in line with the sexual content of advertisements. Study III was a simulator study (N = 55) which confirmed that driving characteristics change when sexually-oriented advertisements are located along the road. These studies have led us to a conclusion that sexually appealing cues in roadside advertising may pose a threat for road safety.
The purpose of this project was to verify whether slogans displayed on roadside advertisements created a distraction for drivers. In order to explain the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon, Study 1 examined the impact of slogan length on attentional processing efficiency. Study 2 investigated the relationship between the length of the slogan and the motor behavior of respondents driving a car simulator. We assumed that slogan length would decrease the drivers' task performance in both studies. Study 1 was conducted on a group of 70 participants, who completed a modified version of the Attention Network Test (ANT; Fan et al. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 14(3), 340-347, 2002). The task consisted of visual ads intended to distract respondents from the primary task. Reaction times were significantly longer when ads had longer slogans compared to shorter slogans. Study 2, involving a car simulator, was conducted on a group of 53 drivers performing a task of driving in a convoy. Participants were shown billboards with ads at the roadside in random order (two pairs of corresponding ads with short and long text on it). Participants' driving performance decreased when longer slogans were presented in comparison to the short-slogan condition. In conclusion, we interpret the results of Study 1 to indicate that longer slogan leads to a greater load of attentional processing. This subsequently leads to a reduction of the processing efficiency within attentional systems and further increases the amount of time to resist the irrelevant stimulus. A consequence of this, as shown in Study 2 using a car simulator, is a decrease in cognitive resources necessary for safe driving and therefore worse performance on a driving task.
The question of roadside advertisement’s influence on road safety is complex and multi-faceted. The list of advertisements characteristics which may play significant role for road safety includes: the size, colours, shape, luminance, contrast, localization, and many more. One of the aspects is advertisement’s content. Advertising industry uses emotional and cognitive mechanisms which are likely to engage the addressees’ attention and therefore make the brand/product more salient for their minds. As far as such a strategy might be effective for advertisers, it may be dangerous for road safety, when used in roadside advertisement. Cognitive, especially attentional, resources play key role in vehicle driving, which requires constant maintenance of situational awareness. Attention distraction, both visual and cognitive, is a proven safety-decreasing factor in vehicle driving. A method for measuring the influence of different advertisement content on attentional resources management - a short, version of the ANT, Brief-ANT, was developed. The results of a nationwide study conducted, revealed that reaction time in Brief-ANT differed significantly depending on the type of content used as the fixation cue, which leads us to a conclusion that Brief-ANT might be a good measure of the content’s influence on attentional resources management.
Abstract. Distraction during driving is becoming a major problem in contemporary transport and traffic psychology. Concentration may deteriorate complex vehicle systems due to the provision of unnecessary information and use of mobile phones (the problem is not only talking but writing text messages and e-mails, browsing sites, etc.). A significant role is also played by advertisers who use aggressive ways to attract attention and communicate product information, especially because they compete with an already overloaded attention system. On the other hand, the need for stimulation is strong with people increasingly less tolerant to monotony. The RoAdvert project is aimed to develop evidence-based rules of placing roadside advertising with respect to safety and real possibilities of regulating the advertising market, including the optimal level of driver stimulation. The paper will present a preliminary analysis of the survey and experimental research.
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