THE VISUAL CUES USED TO EVALUATE OTHER PEDESTRIANS; FACE, BODY, OR SOMETHING ELSE?

Published by	Publication Date	Number of Pages
CIE	09/29/2021	6

Category: CIE

Description

CIE x048-OP64 – THE VISUAL CUES USED TO EVALUATE OTHER PEDESTRIANS; FACE, BODY, OR SOMETHING ELSE?

In subsidiary roads, lighting is installed to meet the needs of pedestrians after dark for safety and their feeling of safety. One aspect is the need to evaluate other people to inform the approach-or-avoid decision. To investigate how changes in lighting matter for this task, we first need to know where people tend to look. Much past work assumes the face is the critical target but this assumption has yet to be tested. A pilot study suggested ability to see the hands and face were significant cues, but did not enable their separate contributions to be identified. This paper describes a second experiment conducted to compare the effect of changes in face and hand concealment on evaluations of safety. The results suggest significant differences between levels of face concealment but smaller differences for changes in hand concealment. The findings from both experiments support the importance of the face for evaluating other pedestrians.