A Comparison of the Recognition Distance of Several Types of Pedestrian Signals with Low-Vision Pedestrians
By Van Houten, Ron, PhD; Blasch, Bruce, PhD; Malenfant, J.E. Louis, PhD; Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development, Vol. 38, No. 4, pp. 443-448Publication Date: July/August 2001
Study evaluating the ability of people with low vision to discriminate between WALK and DON’T WALK pedestrian signals in five formats: (1) an incandescent sign, (2) a white light-emitting diode (LED) sign, (3) a blue LED sing, (4) a white LED sign with an animated eye display, and (5) a blue LED with an animated eye display. The animated eye displays consisted of two blue or white eyes with eyeballs scanning let or right at the rate of one cycle per second. Eighteen adults with low vision participated in the study. Test stimuli were presented in randomized blocks of trials, and recognition distances were determined by having participants approach the test stimuli until they could identify them. Results indicated that there were no significant differences between the incandescent and LED signals without the animated eyes or between the blue and white LED signals. A significant contrast between the signals with the animated eyes display and signals without the display, as participants could identify the WALK signal 62 percent farther away when it contained the animated eyes display. The results show that the addition of an animated eyes display to the WALK sign significantly improves recognition distance for a large segment of persons with visual impairments.
Published by:
VA Rehabilitation Research & Development Service (Web Site: http://www.rehab.research.va.gov )
Link to text: http://www.vard.org/jour/01/38/4/pdf/vanhouten.pdf
This publication is included in the library of the National Rehabilitation Information Center (NARIC), accession number J42913
