Effects of Road Surface Conditions and Traffic Environment on Visual Attention while Walking on a School Road

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of two factors, “road surface condition” and “traffic environment”, on the visual attention of pedestrians, based on the hypothesis that these factors influence the gazing behavior of students walking along the school route. The following 3 points were clarified by analyzing gaze data and questionnaire survey results obtained by the moving image viewing experiment in the real image VR environment where the experimental condition can be controlled. (1) The effect of the gazing action on immovable objects was limited when snow cover and movable objects separately increased the load. (2) When snow cover and the presence or absence of movable objects simultaneously increased the load, the average gaze time to immovable objects might have increased due to the lowering of visual attention by the loss of margin in cognitive resources. (3) The relationship between traffic safety consciousness for immovable objects and visual attention for immovable objects is clarified.