McIntyre Scott E
Graduate School and University Center, CUNY, Department of Psychology, Brooklyn College, 2900 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11210-2889, United States.
Accid Anal Prev. 2008 Mar;40(2):691-6. doi: 10.1016/j.aap.2007.09.020. Epub 2007 Oct 9.
Rear-end collisions and distraction are major concerns and basic research in cognitive psychology concerning attention in visual search is applicable to these problems. It is proposed that using yellow tail lamps will result in faster reaction times and fewer errors than current tail lamp coloring (red) in detecting brake lamps (red) in a "worst case" scenario where brake lamp onset, lamp intensity and temporal and contextual cues are not available. Participants engaged in a visual search for brake lamps in two conditions, one using red tail lamps with red brake lamps and one with the proposed combination of yellow tail lamps with red brake lamps in which they indicated by keyboard response the presence or absence of braking cars. The hypothesis that separating brake and tail lamps by color alone would produce faster RTs, reduce errors, and provide greater conspicuity was supported. Drivers and non-drivers detect absence and presence of red brake lamps faster and with greater accuracy with the proposed yellow tail lamps than red tail lamps without the aid of any of the aforementioned cues. Vehicle conspicuity will be improved and reductions in rear-end collisions and other accidents will be reduced by implementing the proposed yellow tail lamp coloring.
追尾碰撞和注意力分散是主要问题，认知心理学中关于视觉搜索注意力的基础研究适用于这些问题。有人提出，在刹车灯亮起、灯光强度以及时间和情境线索均不可用的“最坏情况”场景下，与当前尾灯颜色（红色）相比，使用黄色尾灯在检测刹车灯（红色）时将导致更快的反应时间和更少的错误。参与者在两种条件下进行视觉搜索刹车灯，一种是红色尾灯搭配红色刹车灯，另一种是提议的黄色尾灯搭配红色刹车灯，他们通过键盘响应来表明是否有正在刹车的车辆。仅通过颜色区分刹车灯和尾灯会产生更快的反应时间、减少错误并提供更高的醒目性这一假设得到了支持。在没有上述任何线索的情况下，与红色尾灯相比，驾驶者和非驾驶者使用提议的黄色尾灯能更快、更准确地检测到红色刹车灯的有无。通过采用提议的黄色尾灯颜色，车辆的醒目性将得到提高，追尾碰撞和其他事故也将减少。
