This report is a note about the 1989-1991 research period of the "Visual selection" project that was carried out by the SWOV Institute for Road Safety Research. The experiments for this project were conducted by the former TNO Institute for Perception (IZF-TNO). The report summarizes the results of the experiments, and shows how far the results are related to real traffic situations. The laboratory experiments show that the degree to which the abrupt onsets attract attention is mainly regulated by the subjects' expectations about the place where the target object will appear. It also appears that the subjects cannot focus their attention on an arbitrary stimulus dimension just like that, without causing any interference. The subjects' expectations (the so-called 'top-down' approach) do not completely regulate their visual selection. An experiment using photographs of traffic scenes shows that the location expectation factor is also important when searching in more realistic traffic situations. It appears that both road users and traffic signs located at unexpected places are significantly more neglected than when they are located at expected places. The report also discusses the implications of the findings for the traffic safety. See also IRRD 829522 (B 29967), 834473 (B 30628) and 859000 (C1260 (In: C 1244).
Abstract