Semantic content of motorcycle riders ’ eye fixations during lane-splitting

AbstractA naturalistic field observation study is presented, exploring the experienced riders ’ eye fixations on specific traffic objects and their relative semantic content during lane-splitting manoeuvre in urban settings. Six experienced motorcyclists rode their own motorcycles equipped with an eye-tracking system. Data were extracted using manual video annotation and stimulated retrosp ective think-aloud methods. In total, 54 cases of lane-splitting (i.e., passing between a consecutive set of three moving cars) were analysed in terms of traffic objects and car-body parts fixated upon. Eye-fixation results on traffic objects show that all six riders tended to fixate less on the nea rest target cars, allocating more fixations in monitoring the farthest target car and traffic ahead. In addition, all six riders fixated consistently on specific car-body parts of the target cars, namely, on the front body parts of the nearest target car (i.e. wing mirror, front side window, and fro nt wing/tyre) and on the rear body parts of the farthest target car (i.e., rear light, rear quarter pillar, and rear wing/tyre). Riders’ commentaries revealed that the aforementioned fixations were intentionally made in search of (1) assessing the level of drivers’ attentiveness of the neighbori ng car(s), and (2) anticipating the possible path deviations of the neighboring car(s), for monitoring the upcoming contingencies in the traffic ahead rather than simply monitoring the actual movements ...
Source: Cognition, Technology and Work - Category: Information Technology Source Type: research