Journal article
Bright-light distractions and visual performance
- Abstract:
- Visual distractions pose a significant risk to transportation safety, with laser attacks against aircraft pilots being a common example. This study used a research-grade High Dynamic Range (HDR) display to produce bright-light distractions for 12 volunteer participants performing a combined visual task across central and peripheral visual fields. The visual scene had an average luminance of 10 cd∙m−2 with targets of approximately 0.5° angular size, while the distractions had a maximum luminance of 9,000 cd∙m−2 and were 3.6° in size. The dependent variables were the mean fixation duration during task execution (representative of information processing time), and the critical stimulus duration required to support a target level of performance (representative of task efficiency). The experiment found a statistically significant increase in mean fixation duration, rising from 192 ms without distractions to 205 ms with bright-light distractions (p = 0.023). This indicates a decrease in visibility of the low contrast targets or an increase in cognitive workload that required greater processing time for each fixation in the presence of the bright-light distractions. Mean critical stimulus duration was not significantly affected by the distraction conditions used in this study. Future experiments are suggested to replicate driving and/or piloting tasks and employ bright-light distractions based on real-world data, and we advocate the use of eye-tracking metrics as sensitive measures of changes in performance.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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- Files:
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 2.8MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1088975
Authors
- Publisher:
- Frontiers Media
- Journal:
- Frontiers in Psychology More from this journal
- Volume:
- 14
- Article number:
- 1088975
- Place of publication:
- Switzerland
- Publication date:
- 2023-04-25
- Acceptance date:
- 2023-03-31
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1664-1078
- Pmid:
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37333576
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1346444
- Local pid:
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pubs:1346444
- Deposit date:
-
2023-09-10
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Williamson et al
- Copyright date:
- 2023
- Rights statement:
- © 2023 Williamson, Morganti and Smithson. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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