Male pedestrians are over-represented in road crashes. Among pedestrians, males violate more rules than females do. For now, it is not known whether gender differences in pedestrian behaviors only concern rule compliance. The objective of this study was to explore gender differences in pedestrian rule compliance and in gaze targets before and during crossing. 400 adult pedestrians were observed at two signalized and two unsignalized crossroads, using a taxonomic observation grid which detailed 13 behavioral categories before, during and after crossing. The results show that the temporal crossing compliance rate is lower among male pedestrians but spatial crossing compliance does not differ between genders. Furthermore, different gaze patterns emerge between genders before and during crossing, notably as women particularly focus on other pedestrians during these two periods whereas men focus on vehicles. Moreover, females' gazes vary with the type of crossroads, but males' gazes do not.Spatial crossing compliance and gaze targets are furthermore modulated by the crossroad configuration. These results are discussed in terms of pedestrian visual strategy and compliance.

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Two experiments were conducted to investigate the processes involved when people use spatial descriptions intended to assist navigation. More specifically, we compared the effectiveness of route directions in an urban environment based on references either to landmarks or to street names. In the first experiment, the participants learned route directions that referred either to landmarks or to streets named after landmarks (e.g. a hospital vs. 'Hospital Street'). Processing times were shorter for instructions based on landmarks than for those based on street names. When the participants subsequently drew the route described, their memory was better when they had processed landmark rather than street information. The same route directions were used in the second experiment, in which the participants' memories were tested in a recognition task. The results showed that when target words referred to landmarks, the participants were more accurate and took less time to respond than when the same words were used to refer to streets. This finding indicates that the results of the previous experiment cannot be attributed to differing costs of the retrieval processes. Overall, the results of these experiments confirm the special cognitive status of landmarks in the mental representation of routes.