The relationship between visual memory and rider expertise in a show-jumping context

Individuals develop visual skills while participating in sport. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of reported riding expertise on the recall of visual information relating to show-jumps. We identified a relevant (F1) and irrelevant (F2) point of focus in 22 photographs of show-jumps. Participants were students (n = 40) with varying levels of horse riding ability. The task, having viewed each photograph for four seconds, was to identify F1s or F2s from four alternatives viewed for ten seconds. F1s were recalled significantly more than F2s (P<0.001). Riding expertise did not affect overall recall but only intermediate/advanced riders recalled F1s significantly better than F2s (P<0.05 and P<0.001 respectively). Recall of F1s but not of F2s was significantly correlated with riding expertise (P<0.05). Training riders in visual attention techniques might improve ridden performance and could reduce the number of accidents associated with lack of experience and/or rider error

Producing a commentary slows concurrent hazard perception responses

Commentary driver training involves teaching drivers how to verbally acknowledge their perceptual and cognitive processes while driving, and has been shown to improve performance in driving-related tasks. However, those studies demonstrating benefits of commentary training have not done so under conditions of live commentary, which is the typical protocol used with advanced drivers. In the current study we present the results of two experiments that show that producing a commentary can actually slow responses to hazards on a concurrent hazard perception task. In Experiment 1 participants producing a live commentary showed significantly longer hazard response times than an untrained, silent, control group. In Experiment 2 a shorter, clipped commentary was introduced to attempt to reduce the demands placed upon participants. However, both the clipped and full commentary conditions showed reduced accuracy and longer response times, relative to a silent condition, and no difference was observed between the two types of commentary. Analysis of eye movements in both experiments revealed that fixation durations were shorter when a commentary was produced, but time to first fixate the hazard was not affected. This suggests that commentaries encourage more active interrogation of the visual scene, but that this can be detrimental to performance in average drivers

Predicting criminal incidents on the basis of non-verbal behaviour: the role of experience

Do experienced police officers have a superior ability to detect impending criminal acts? In order to test this hypothesis ten Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) clips were collected from real criminal events that occurred in and around Nottingham city centre in the UK. Ten control clips were filmed specifically or chosen from existing footage to match the criminal clips, but did not contain any criminal activity. All clips ended abruptly, immediately prior to a real criminal act unfolding, or a non-criminal act in the control clips, and either the screen turned black, masking the video scene, or remained frozen on the final frame of the edited clip. Thirty police officers and 30 control participants watched the clips. At the end of each clip, participants were asked to predict what would happen next. Signal detection analysis indicated marginal evidence that police show greater accuracy in predicting clips that cut to black screen compared to the general public. A stronger effect was noted in the analysis of the criterion, with police officers much more likely to predict a crime regardless of whether there was one. These findings provide promising evidence of experiential differences between police officers and the general public when identifying criminal and antisocial behaviour in CCTV footage, though the greater criterion bias effect suggests that experience may over-sensitise individuals to non-verbal cues

Keeping your eye on the rail: gaze behaviour of horse riders approaching a jump

The gaze behaviour of riders during their approach to a jump was investigated using a mobile eye tracking device (ASL Mobile Eye). The timing, frequency and duration of fixations on the jump and the percentage of time when their point of gaze (POG) was located elsewhere were assessed. Fixations were identified when the POG remained on the jump for 100 ms or longer. The jumping skill of experienced but non-elite riders (n=10) was assessed by means of a questionnaire. Their gaze behaviour was recorded as they completed a course of three identical jumps five times. The speed and timing of the approach was calculated. Gaze behaviour throughout the overall approach and during the last five strides before take-off was assessed following frame-by-frame analyses. Differences in relation to both round and jump number were found. Significantly longer was spent fixated on the jump during round 2, both during the overall approach and during the last five strides (p , 0.05). Jump 1 was fixated on significantly earlier and more frequently than jump 2 or 3 (p , 0.05). Significantly more errors were made with jump 3 than with jump 1 (p=0.01) but there was no difference in errors made between rounds

Cross-cultural effects on the perception and appraisal of approaching motorcycles at junctions

Crundall et al. (2008) reported that perceptual errors (failing to perceive) and not appraisal errors (failing to make a correct judgment about safety) are likely to explain the relatively high number of right of way violation accidents involving motorcycles in relation to cars. Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effect of exposure to motorcycles on these types of errors by comparing drivers from Malaysia where motorcycles are very common with drivers from the UK where motorcycles are rare. Experiment 1 investigated drivers' ability to perceive approaching vehicles (car or motorcycle) located at different distances (near, intermediate and far) on UK and Malaysian roads. There was no difference between Malaysian and UK drivers in overall ability to perceive the approaching vehicles but Malaysian drivers were relatively good at perceiving motorcycles at further distances. Experiment 2 investigated drivers' judgments about whether or not it was safe to pull out on the same roads and found that Malaysian drivers were more likely to judge it was safe to pull out as compared to UK drivers. Findings suggest that high exposure to motorcycles may reduce vehicle effects on perception for Malaysian drivers. However they may more risky appraisals about safety of pulling out, which might contribute to the high accident and fatality rates in Malaysia

Development and validation of the Spanish hazard perception test

Objective: The aim of the current study is to develop and obtain validity evidence for a Hazard Perception test suitable for the Spanish driving population. To obtain validity evidence to support the use of the test, the effect of hazardous and quasi-hazardous situations on the participants’ Hazard Prediction is analysed and the pattern of results of drivers of different driving experience: learner, novice and expert drivers and re-offender vs. non-offender drivers, is compared. Potentially hazardous situations are those that develop without involving any real hazard (i.e., the driver didn’t actually have to decelerate or make any evasive manoeuvre to avoid a potential collision). The current study analysed multiple offender drivers attending compulsory re-education programmes as a result of reaching the maximum number of penalty points on their driving licence, due to repeated violations of traffic laws. Method: A new video-based hazard perception test was developed, using a total of 20 hazardous situation videos plus 8 quasi-hazardous situation videos. They were selected from 167 recordings of natural hazards in real Spanish driving settings

Risk-taking on the road and in the mind: behavioural and neural patterns of decision making between risky and safe drivers

Objective: Drivers’ risk tendency is a key issue of on-road safety. The purpose of the present study was to explore individual differences in drivers’ decision-making processes, linking external behaviors to internal neural activity, to reveal the cognitive mechanisms of on-road risky behaviors. Methods: Twenty-four male drivers were split into two groups (risky versus safe drivers) by their self-reported risky driving, measured by the Driving Behavior Questionnaire (DBQ). To assess the drivers’ behavioral and neural patterns of decision-making, two psychological paradigms were adopted: the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) and the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART). The performance of each task and corresponding Event Related Potentials (ERPs) evoked by feedback were recorded. Results: In IGT, both driver groups demonstrated similar capacities to realize the advantage choices (decks with larger expected rewards) through long-term selection-feedback process. However, the risky drivers showed higher preference for the risky choices (decks with identical expected rewards but larger variances) than the safe drivers. In BART, the risky drivers demonstrated higher adjusted pumps than that of the safe drivers, especially for the trials following previous negative feedback. More importantly, the risky drivers showed lower amplitudes of Feedback-Related Negativity (FRN) after negative feedbacks, as well as the lower amplitudes of loss-minus-gain FRN, in both paradigms. The significant between-group difference of P300 amplitudes was also reported, which was modified by specific paradigms and according feedbacks. Conclusion: The drivers’ on-road behaviors were determined by the cognitive process, indicated by the behavioral and neural patterns of decision-making. The risky drivers were relatively less error-revised and more reward-motivated, which were associated with the according neural processing of error-detection and reward-evaluation. In this light, it is feasible to quantize divers’ risk tendency in the cognitive stage before actual risky driving or traffic accidents, and intervene accordingly

Is hazard perception ability culturally specific? A cross-cultural comparison between China, Spain and the UK

Hazard perception refers to a driver’s ability to spot hazards on the road in time to make a safe manoeuvre to avoid collision. Such a test is now part of the formal licencing procedure in the UK and in parts of Australia. But can such tests be successfully exported to other countries to reduce traffic fatalities? The aim of this project is to study whether hazard perception skill is culturally specific by comparing UK, Spanish and Chinese drivers across clips filmed in all three countries. Data collection was set-up in the respective countries in collaboration with the University of Granada (Spain) and Tsinghua University (China). Participants had to watch 30 video clips filmed from the driver’s perspective (10 filmed in each of the three countries). Two variants of the test were created: a typical hazard perception test (with full clips requiring speeded responses to hazards), and a hazard prediction task (or 'What Happens Next?' task), where the film ends immediately prior to the hazard onset. This latter test removes the confound of individual hazard thresholds, as participants could successfully report 'what happens next' without judging whether it posed a hazard to them. All videos contained a variety of hazardous situations (or precursors to hazards) reflecting the particular driving environment of each country. Three hundred participants across the 3 countries were tested, evenly divided between learner and experienced drivers. The differences between the culturally-specific tests in their ability to discriminate between driver groups will be discussed in regards to the potential for employing hazard perception testing in diverse geographical locations and cultures

Aperture judgement in fire-appliance drivers

Low-speed collisions are a common occurrence for UK Fire and Rescue Services, with frequent bumps and scrapes adding up to create a significant drain on emergency service budgets, and damaging public faith in the service. We hypothesised that the decision to drive through a gap, or aperture, created by other vehicles and/or road furniture, may be related to driver experience and risk-level. To create a test to assess this skill, video clips were recorded from a fire appliance on bluelight training runs. Eighteen clips were selected on the basis that they culminated in a narrow aperture that the film-driver either navigated through, or stopped and waited for other vehicles to move and the gap to widen. Drivers were required to watch these clips, which paused at the point that the film-driver made the decision to either go though, or to wait. The participants rated their belief that the appliance would fit through the gap, and how confident they would be to drive through that aperture themselves (on a 1-8 scale). Novice fire-appliance drivers were less accurate in deciding whether to proceed or not, though their criterion threshold did not differ to that of more experienced drivers. All drivers favoured looking at the right edge of the aperture (either a vehicle or road furniture), but low-risk, experienced fire appliance drivers had the shortest fixations on this area. The results suggest that a video-based test of aperture judgement can differentiate between fire-appliance driver groups based on experience, opening the way for future testing and training tools using this methodology