Robert W. Proctor

Smart intersections have the potential to improve road safety with sensing, communication, and edge computing technologies. Perception sensors installed at a smart intersection can monitor the traffic environment in real time and send infrastructure-based warnings to nearby travelers through V2X communication. This paper investigated how infrastructure-based warnings can influence driving behaviors and improve roundabout safety through a driving-simulator study - a challenging driving scenario for human drivers. A co-simulation platform integrating Simulation of Urban Mobility (SUMO) and Webots was developed to serve as the driving simulator. A real-world roundabout in Ann Arbor, Michigan was built in the co-simulation platform as the study area, and the merging scenarios were investigated. 36 participants were recruited and asked to navigate the roundabout under three danger levels (e.g., low, medium, high) and three collision warning designs (e.g., no warning, warning issued 1 second in advance, warning issued 2 seconds in advance). Results indicated that advanced warnings can significantly enhance safety by minimizing potential risks compared to scenarios without warnings. Earlier warnings enabled smoother driver responses and reduced abrupt decelerations. In addition, a personalized intention prediction model was developed to predict drivers' stop-or-go decisions when the warning is displayed. Among all tested machine learning models, the XGBoost model achieved the highest prediction accuracy with a precision rate of 95.56% and a recall rate of 97.73%.

This paper presents a comprehensive review of and searchable database of statistical power analysis tools.

As an essential component of the human attention system, the effect of phasic alertness refers to the change of performance with the presence of a precedin

When participants respond to a task-relevant stimulus attribute by pressing a left or right key with the respective index finger, reaction time is shorter if task-irrelevant left-right stimulus location corresponds to that of the response key than if it does not. For right-handers, this Simon effect is larger for right-located than left-located stimuli; for left-handers this Simon-effect asymmetry is reversed. A similar asymmetry has been found for right-footers pressing pedals with their feet. For analyses that separate stimulus- and response-location factors, these asymmetries appear as a main effect of response location, with responses being faster with the dominant effector. If the Simon-effect asymmetry is strictly a function of effector dominance, it should reverse for left-footers responding with their feet. In Experiment 1, left-dominant persons showed faster responses with the left than right hand but with the right than left foot, a finding consistent with prior research on tapping actions. Right-dominant persons also showed the right-foot asymmetry but, unexpectedly, not the typical asymmetry with hand responses. To evaluate whether hand-presses yield results distinct from finger-presses, in Experiment 2 participants performed the Simon task with finger-presses and hand-presses. The opposing asymmetries for right- and left-dominant persons were evident for both response modes. Our results are consistent with the view that the Simon effect asymmetry is primarily due to differences in effector efficiency, usually but not always favoring the dominant effector.

During the transition period when connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) and human-driven vehicles (HDVs) coexist on the roadway, miscommunication and improper interactions may lead to accidents due to lack of awareness of each other’s intentions. The most promising approach to this problem is to view roadway transportation as a cyber-physical-social system consisting of CAV, HDV, and infrastructure subsystems. Although adaptations of infrastructure are as critical as the technological advances of vehicles, the role of infrastructure in CAV and HDV interactions has not been fully acknowledged. We consider the roadway transportation system from the system-of-systems perspective, taking a human-centred approach that integrates the behaviours of human drivers and CAVs with the design and enhancement of transportation infrastructure. We provide an overview of prior studies regarding information-processing and communication of the subsystems. Interactions between HDVs and infrastructure are summarised by human driving behaviours and HDV crash analysis. Interactions between HDVs and CAVs focus on how they perceive and predict actions of each other. Interactions between CAVs and infrastructure are characterised by possible adaptations of infrastructure to support CAV navigation. Lastly, we propose a human-centred framework to provide guidance for research on and design of next-generation transportation infrastructure with CAVs and HDVs. Implementation of CAVs on the roadways with HDVs requires a system-of-systems approach that includes the CAVs, HDVs, and transportation infrastructure. Humans must be at the center of this approach because their actions are central to the success of the entire system.

Han and Proctor (2022a, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 75[4], 754–764) reported that in a visual two-choice task, compared with a no-w

Application icons are a pivotal part of graphical user interface of mobile devices. Despite a trend away from complexity to simplicity in user interface design, there is lack of evidence supporting the superiority of icon simplicity from a psychophysiological perspective. This study investigates the effects of icon complexity and simplicity on user cognition using an event-related potentials (ERPs) technique. Eighteen participants completed an icon cognition and evaluation experiment in an electrophysiological laboratory. Their subjective evaluations, behavioral data, and ERP data were recorded and analyzed. The results of subjective evaluation showed that the simplest icons were regarded as more useful in helping subjects extract icon information than more complex ones. For the ERP measures, P1 amplitudes induced by complex icons were larger than those elicited by simple icons. In the parietal area, P2 amplitudes and latency were larger and later for complex icons than for simple ones. Simple icons are subjectively more helpful than complex ones, partially because they demand fewer attention resources in early stimulus-driven perceptual detection of icon features (P1 during 120–190 ms) and induce more positive emotional arousal (P2 during 190–200 ms). Simple icon designs minimize cognitive demands and are deemed more helpful than complex ones. Our study highlights that the ERP technique represents a tool to explore how users process icon and interface design.