Affordance Perception and Safety Intervention

Abstract

The notion that people consider accident risk during driving and other activities has long dominated safety research. The practical importance of risk perception and risk compensation, however, has been overrated. As an alternative formulation, behavior may be affected by action-oriented perception of affordances — we act in ways that we think will be adequate for success. Research on affordance perception has implications for understanding the causes of accidents, and for evaluating and designing warnings and other intended safety interventions.

Helmet Use in Sledding: Do Users Comply with Manufacturer Warnings?

“…Thus, it is likely that many of the sledders we observed, who were using the same or similar products as the exemplars, were provided with the same or similar warnings. Ayres et al (2000) noted that people are unlikely to engage in behaviors with very likely or severe consequences. The low usage rates we observed, despite the prevalence of helmet use warnings, suggest that sledders generally do not perceive head injury to be a likely or severe consequence of sledding.…”

“…The low usage rates we observed, despite the prevalence of helmet use warnings, suggest that sledders generally do not perceive head injury to be a likely or severe consequence of sledding. Decisions regarding helmet use are likely to be based on the immediate perceived affordances of sledding, and the resultant behaviors are believed to be generally adequate for success (Ayres et al, 2000).…”

Warning against Critical Slopes in Agriculture: Comprehension of Targeted Safety Signs in a Group of Machinery Operators in Italy

“…Previous studies showed also that agricultural machinery operators often disregard the steepness of terrain [13,14,15] and they tend to be inaccurate when estimating slopes [5,14]. This may lead to driving in hazardous conditions, thereby increasing the risk of a rollover incident [16].…”

Risk Perception and Risk-Taking Behavior of Construction Site Dumper Drivers

“…However, one implication of this finding is that it demotes the role of risk perception and assigns a far stronger role to supraindividual factors likely to influence the expression of unsafe behaviors. Finally, Ayres, Wood, Schmidt and McCarthy [11] and Ayres, Wood, Schmidt, Young, et al [28] assert that the practical importance of risk perception has been overstated. They distinguish between risk judgments and risk perception and suggest that in experimental studies, people can be cued into providing reasonably accurate risk judgments but "this does not necessarily mean that people perceive risk" (p. 36) [11].…”