Pedestrian conspicuity at night: failure to observe a biological motion advantage in a high‐clutter environment

Abstract

Using recent accident data to simulate a common collision environment, a 10-minute car journey was filmed in which a moving or stationary pedestrian wearing one of two types of retroreflective clothing appeared in an environment with high visual clutter. It was hypothesized that moving pedestrians would be detected at greater distances when wearing retroreflective aids in biological motion configuration ('biomotion' clothing), but not when wearing a standard retroreflective vest. Participants viewed films of the journey, pressed a button when they detected the pedestrian and rated the difficulty of the task. Biomotion clothing did not significantly increase detection distance for either moving or stationary pedestrians compared to the vest. However, moving pedestrians were detected significantly further away than stationary pedestrians with both clothings. The results do not support the hypothesis that biological motion clothing affords recognition at greater distances than standard conspicuity aids in environments with high visual clutter.

Visibility aid cycling clothing: flashing light-emitting diode (FLED) configurations

“…The results demonstrated significant differences in the observers' detection (F(7, 2343) ¼ 65.32, p o 0.001), recognition of the cyclist (F(7, 2343) ¼ 42.72, p o 0.001), improvement of conspicuity by the FLEDs (F(7, 2343) ¼ 61.11, p o 0.001), and perceived conspicuity of the cyclist (F(7, 2343) ¼ 52.55, p o 0.001) (Table I, Figure 3). Similar to Moberly and Langham's (2002) research, we found that age and driving experience had no significant effect on participants' responses.…”

“…For more than 40 years, researchers in human factors and transportation safety have used recorded films in laboratory environments to simulate road conditions and evaluate the conspicuity and conspicuity of targets (Huges and Cole, 1986;Johansson, 1975;Michon et al, 1969;Moberly and Langham, 2002;. Michon et al (1969) conducted experiments with safety clothing for human traffic obstacles using fluorescent and non-fluorescent colors and measured the reaction time of observers.…”

“…Researchers also found that video simulation can be used as an educational tool because participants could experience the hazards of night driving without worrying about possible collisions while experimenting on the road . Moberly and Langham (2002) recorded a person wearing retroreflective clothing wearer using a camera mounted at the head level of a driver facing toward the windshield. Participants viewed the videos for each case and were asked to press buttons when they detected the wearer and to rate the difficulty of the task (Moberly and Langham, 2002).…”

2015 Glenn A. Fry Award Lecture: Driving toward a New Vision: Understanding the Role of Vision in Driving

“…141,143 Clutter Exploration of the effects of the complexity of the driving environment at night is important, particularly given that it has been suggested that the advantages of biomotion clothing are reduced in visually cluttered driving environments. 144 In closed-road studies, we demonstrated the strong advantage of retroreflective markings in the biomotion configuration regardless of whether visual clutter was present. 125 In follow-up studies conducted in both closed-and open-road settings, we have also demonstrated that workers in cluttered road construction sites are more conspicuous when they wear biomotion markings in addition to a retroreflective vest.…”

Firefighter daytime visibility: trim properties and conspicuity

“…Studies of nighttime conspicuity (Luoma et al 1996;Wood et al 2011Wood et al , 2012Wood et al , 2014Sayer and Mefford 2004) commonly find a conspicuity advantage for trim placements that convey movement patterns that are visually associated with human activity [a factor referred to as biological motion or 'biomotion' (Johansson 1973)]. At least one study, however, found no differences between biomotion clothing and regular safety vests, e.g., (Moberly and Langham 2002). Similarly, studies on daytime conspicuity have not found that motion increases visibility for individuals wearing fluorescent high visibility jackets (Sayer and Buonarosa 2008).…”