PERIPHERAL VISION IS FREQUENTLY REGARDED AS BEING OF SIGNIFICANT IMPORTANCE IN DRIVING. TO DATE, HOWEVER, LITTLE STUDY HAS BEEN MADE OF PERIPHERAL VISUAL PERFORMANCE IN THE ROAD SITUATION AS THE DRIVING TASK LOAD IS ALTERED. A SERIES OF ON-ROAD EXPERIMENTS ARE REPORTED HERE WHICH INVESTIGATE PERIPHERAL VISUAL DETECTIONS IN BOTH NORMAL TRAFFIC AND CLOSED-ROAD TEST LOCATIONS USING NEAR-THRESHOLD LIGHT STIMULI PLACED AT NEAR (30 DEG.) AND FAR (70 DEG.) ANGLES WITHIN THE VEHICLE. THE OVERALL RESULTS INDICATED THAT INCREASES IN BOTH THE DIFFICULTY OF THE DRIVING TASK AND THE COMPLEXITY OF THE BACKGROUND VISUAL SCENE DEGRADED THE DETECTION RATE OF THE VISUAL SIGNALS. FURTHERMORE, DECREMENTS WERE OBSERVED AT ALL PERIPHERAL ANGLES TESTED. THE POSSIBLE IMPLICATIONS OF THESE FINDINGS FOR THE DRIVING TASK AND THE DESIGN OF THE ROAD ENVIRONMENT ARE DISCUSSED. (A). FOR THE COVERING ABSTRACT OF THE CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS SEE IRRD ABSTRACT NO. 226354.
Samenvatting