二重課題と視点移動がエレベータ開閉ボタンの押し間違いに及ぼす影響

抄録

Many of you might have experienced pressing an "open" button when you actually wanted to "close" elevator doors. Earlier studies have focused on design of pictograms as the main factor causing errors of pressing buttons in elevators. However, in addition to the design of pictograms, cognitive factors, such as dual task and eye movement, may also cause people to make errors and delay their reaction times (RTs). This study investigated how these cognitive factors affect error rates and RTs of pressing buttons in elevators. Two pictograms of buttons (open and close) were presented on a screen following a preceding instruction (open or close). Participants were required to press the corresponding key as quickly and accurately as possible. Open and close signs were illustrated by three pairs of different pictograms and a pair of words. Stimuli were randomly presented on periphery (with-eye-movement condition) or center (without-eye-movement condition) of the screen. The experiment was divided into two blocks assigned for separate conditions (dual task or single task). Under the dual task condition, participants were instructed to perform the main task simultaneously with a backward counting task. Our results showed that the effect sizes of the dual task and the eye movement on error rates were larger than that of the design of pictograms. In addition, the effect size of the dual task on RTs was larger than that of design of pictograms. These findings suggest that more focus should be put on revealing the cognitive factors than design of pictograms to decrease errors in elevators.