Improvement in visual target detections and reaction time by auditory stimulation

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate a traffic environment that can reduce traffic accidents of elder walker. We focused on the relationship between traffic accidents and elder person's spatial attention. In this paper, an adolescent subject's and an elder subject's pointing movement to a visual target was measured in three conditions. Condition 1: Only the target was presented. Condition 2: Auditory stimulation was added at a location the same distance from the center as that of the targets but in the opposite direction. Condition 3: Auditory stimulation was added at the same location as the target. The targets were placed in extra working space with the distance of 15 meter from a subject to the targets. In adolescent subjects, results showed that in Condition 3, latency was shorter and the error rate of pointing movements was lower than in the other conditions, In elder subjects, results showed that in all Conditions, ignore ratio to peripheral targets is higher than adolescent subjects. Nevertheless, in condition 3, more ratio was lower than in the other conditions. These results suggest that, it is possible to draw elder walker's spatial attention and to control spatial attention by auditory stimulation.