Élise Labonté-LeMoyne

Background: The number of accidents due to distracted pedestrian is on the rise and many governments and institutions are enacting public policies which restrict texting while walking. However, pedestrians do more than just texting when they use their mobile devices on the go. Objective: Exploring pedestrian multitasking, this paper aims to examine the effects of mobile device task type on pedestrian performance outcomes. Method: We performed two studies in lab simulations where 78 participants were asked to perform different tasks on a mobile device (playing a game, reading, writing an email, texting one person, group texting) while performing a pedestrian visual discrimination task while either standing or walking on a treadmill. Behavioral performance as well as neurophysiological data are collected. Results: Results show that compared to a no-phone control, multitasking with any of the tasks on a mobile device leads to poor performance on a pedestrian visual discrimination task. Playing a game is the most cognitively demanding task and leads to the greatest performance degradation. Conclusion: Our studies show that multitasking with a mobile device has the potential to negatively impact pedestrian safety, regardless of task type. However, the impacts of different mobile device tasks are not all equivalent. More research is needed to tease out the different effects of these various tasks and to design mobile applications which effectively and safely capture pedestrians’ attention. Application: Public policy, infrastructure, and smart technologies can be used to mitigate the negative effects of mobile multitasking. A more thorough understanding of mobile device task-specific factors at play can help tailor these counter-measures to better aid distracted pedestrians.

As the world adapts to COVID-19, the transport behaviour of commuters has been greatly modified. Governments and transit authorities will need strong, well-received mitigation measures and education campaigns to maintain the historically upward trend of sustainable mass transit usage following this pandemic. This study, from a survey of 1968 Canadians in early May 2020, reveals that, following the end of stay-at-home orders, commuters intend to use their cars more and mass transit less. Driving these behavioural changes are commuters’ perceptions that mass transit use will negatively impact their health safety, peace of mind, and travel experience. The results also show that certain mitigation measures, such as more frequent cleaning and mandatory hand washing, are likely to reduce this decline, whereas e-monitoring and the use of health certificates will be detrimental to mass transit ridership through user perception. These results can help lessen the environmental impact of the public returning to work by encouraging their continued use of more environmentally friendly modes of transportation.

This paper presents a study protocol to measure the task-switching cost of using a smartphone while walking. This method involves having participants walk on a treadmill under two experimental conditions: a control condition (i.e., simply walking) and a multitasking condition (i.e., texting while walking). During these conditions, the participants must switch between the tasks related to the experimental condition and a direction determining task. This direction task is done with a point-light walker figure, seemingly walking towards the left or the right of the participant. Performance on the direction task represents the participant’s task-switching costs. There were two performance measures: 1) correct identification of the direction and 2) response time. EEG data are recorded in order to measure the alpha oscillations and cognitive engagement occurring during the task switch. This method is limited in its ecological validity: pedestrian environments have many stimuli occurring simultaneously and competing for attention. Nonetheless, this method is appropriate for pinpointing task-switching costs. The EEG data allow the study of the underlying mechanisms in the brain that are related to differing task-switching costs. This design allows the comparison between task switching when doing one task at a time, as compared to task switching when multitasking, prior to the stimulus presentation. This allows understanding and pinpointing both the behavioral and neurophysiological impact of these two different task-switching conditions. Furthermore, by correlating the task-switching costs with the brain activity, we can learn more about what causes these behavioral effects. This protocol is an appropriate base for studying the switching cost of different smartphone uses. Different tasks, questionnaires, and other measures can be added to it in order to understand the different factors involved in the task-switching cost of smartphone use while walking.

The context of higher education in Canada suffers from alarming rates of dropout and prolongation of study programmes. The lack of academic writing ability and feeling of isolation are among aggravating factors impeding on the success of graduate students. Writing retreats are identified as a potential solution to support and improve academic writing output. This article presents an innovative concept designed by a non-profit organisation, Thèsez-vous, specializing in creating physical and human environments to facilitate academic writing. Over the past four years, the organisation implemented and formalized a writing retreat model for graduate students from various fields of study and universities across the Quebec province in Canada. A description of the writing retreats structure and functioning is presented, as well as an analysis of established objectives: 1) progress academic writing based on realistic individual goals; 2) identify optimal writing conditions; and 3) reduce isolation. Based on conclusive findings, the implemented model produces positive results in developing academic writing abilities through a community of practice forming during writing retreats and interacting afterwards. This expanding network of graduate students represents a new generation of researchers, sharing similar challenges with academic writing and collaborating in interdisciplinary settings to progress scientific efforts at large .