Gaze direction when driving after dark on main and residential roads: Where is the dominant location?

Abstract

CIE JTC-1 has requested data regarding the size and shape of the distribution of eye movement in order to characterise their visual adaptation. This article reports the eye movement of drivers along two routes in Berlin after dark, a main road and a residential street, captured using eye tracking. It was found that viewing behaviour differed between the two types of road.On the main road eye movement was clustered within a circle of approximately 10° diameter, centred at the horizon of the lane. On the residential street eye movement is clustered slightly (3.8°) towards the near side; eye movements were best captured with either an ellipse of approximate axes 10° vertical and 20° horizontal, centred on the lane ahead, or a 10° circle centred 3.8° towards the near side. These distributions reflect a tendency to look towards locations of anticipated hazards.

The transition between lit and unlit sections of road and detection of driving hazards after dark

“…Note also that from the driver's viewpoint, the bumper was surrounded by horizontal road surface, but the tailgate and window were seen against the rear vertical surface of the test chamber A dynamic fixation task was carried out in parallel to the detection tasks, with the purpose of placing the detection tasks in the driver's peripheral visual field 13 and to simulate the non-static gaze patterns of a driver. The fixation target followed a random path within a 108 circle 14 with the lower fifth excluded to avoid it coming too close to the cars and obstacle. The target was between 68 and 128 above the horizontal sightline and the detection tasks (cars and obstacle) were between 08 and 28 below the horizontal.…”

Road lighting research for drivers and pedestrians: The basis of luminance and illuminance recommendations

“…While eye tracking has long been possible, the recent development of mobile eye tracking has made it much easier to investigate where people tend to look whilst travelling [74][75][76][77] ; Systems that allow for monitoring of invehicle driver behaviour and the assessment of the impact of roadway conditions on that behaviour 78 ; The calculation of road surface luminance (and other properties) is a complex task. One development that reduced the effort demanded was the introduction of the desktop personal computer.…”

The effect of assuming static or dynamic gaze behaviour on the estimated background luminance of drivers

“…Luminance images were gathered within three types of roads, these being two real urban traffic scenes (a main road and a residential street as investigated using eye tracking 17 ) and one simulated traffic scene (see Table 1). The simulated scene is included because it is very likely that application of the mesopic luminances will be within the design process, which is typically done with simulation programs.…”

“…10 The gaze direction of a driver is dynamic, constantly moving to different regions of the visual field, in part determined by experience and distractions. 17,[21][22][23] As a result, different parts of the visual field stimulate different parts of the retina, and this puts the retina into a state of continuous transient adaptation. 24 Transient adaptation is the state of changing adaptation when the visual system is not completely adapted to the prevailing illumination, e.g.…”