This study investigated children and adult’s road-crossing behavior in an immersive virtual environment. With bicycle crashes among the most common severe injuries in childhood, the researchers wanted to investigate the why collisions between bicycles and cars. Sixty ten and 12 year olds and adult participated in this study. They rode a bicycle mounted on a stationary trainer through a virtual environment that consisted of 6 intersections.
After the participants rode the bicycle through a 3-5 minute warm-up period they participated in a 10-minute test session, which had them riding on a street where they crossed six intersections. The intersections had continuous traffic moving through them. The temporal distance between the cars was stated as “the difference between the time which the rear of the first vehicle reached the crossing line and the time which the front of the second vehicle reached the crossing line.” The participants were randomly assigned to two groups. One group experienced cars travelling at 25mph for intersections 1-3, and then 35mph at intersections 4-6. The second group experienced cars traveling at 35mph for intersections 1-3 and 25mph for intersections 4-6. The participants were given instructions to stop at each of the 6 intersections but cross when they felt ready.
The results of the study examined five behaviors measured among the different age groups: stopping, waiting time, gap choice, time left to spare, and start-up time. At the first intersection almost all of the participants came to a complete stop before crossing the intersection, but at the remaining intersection many did not come to a complete stop. The ten-year-olds in the 25mph first condition were less likely to stop at the intersections than the ten-year-olds in the 35mph first group. This result could suggest that starting out with slower moving vehicles led children not to be as cautious about stopping at the intersections. Participants in both conditions waited longer at intersection one than any of the other intersections. The waiting time behavior result suggested that participants were more cautious before crossing an intersection when the cars were going faster. The researchers came to this conclusion based on data that showed participants in the 35mph first condition waited for larger gaps than their counterparts in the 25mph first condition. The age difference had an effect only in how much time children and adults left to spare between themselves and the approaching car when they decided to cross the intersection. There was no age difference seen in the size of the gaps children and adults chose to cross.
There are several reasons why children had less time to spare when crossing the gaps even though they chose the same gaps to cross as the adults. One reason may be that it takes children longer to start moving than an adult. The measurements for this theory were not significant. Another reason why children had less time to spare is that it may take children a longer period of time to bicycle from the starting point to the edge of the roadway, but the measurement of this theory show there was no effect with age. The final possible conclusion the researchers can make about why children have less time to spare than adults is that it is a combination of the two previous reasons, getting started and reaching the roadway.
In conclusion the study noted that children have a harder time coordinating their body movements than adults, which is why they have left time to spare between cars than adults. The study also noted that because children and adults chose the exact same gaps to cross shows that children and adults do not vary in their opinion of the relevant visual information. A further area of study would look at whether children and adults act differently in a virtual situation than in a real life situation, but it is not ethical to perform this exact experiment in real life.
The conclusions of this study about children not having great coordination to get the bicycle moving relates to what the Berk book is discussing as far as physical and mental development in children. As children develop their coordination gets better and their motor skills improve, as they get stronger. As children perform more and more task that require them to use their visual perceptive skills, these skills will also improve. I found the result of this study surprising in that children and adults picked the same gaps to cross. I would have thought that children and adults would have varied because adults have experience with driving, they may have a better perception of how fast a car is moving and when a safe time to cross would occur. Also I would have thought age would have played a factor because they tested children who were at the age they start to develop the idea that they are invincible and bad things don’t happen to them. Obviously, my ideas are not right, and physical development and motor skills seem to play the biggest role.
No comments:
Post a Comment