University of Alabama at Birmingham Injury Control Research Center, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294–2041, USA.
J Safety Res. 2011 Apr;42(2):101-7. doi: 10.1016/j.jsr.2011.01.004. Epub 2011 Mar 1.
Distraction on cell phones jeopardizes motor-vehicle driver safety, but few studies examine distracted walking. At particular risk are college students, who walk frequently in and near traffic, have increased pedestrian injury rates compared to other age groups, and frequently use cell phones.
Using an interactive and immersive virtual environment, two experiments studied the effect of cell phone conversation on distraction of college student pedestrians. In the first, we examined whether pedestrians would display riskier behavior when distracted by a naturalistic cell phone conversation than when undistracted. We also considered whether individual difference factors would moderate the effect of the distraction. In a second experiment, we examined the impact of three forms of distraction on pedestrian safety: (a) engaging in a cell phone conversation, (b) engaging in a cognitively challenging spatial task by phone, and (c) engaging in a cognitively challenging mental arithmetic task by phone.
Results revealed that cell phone conversations distracted college pedestrians considerably across all pedestrian safety variables measured, with just one exception. Attention to traffic was not affected by the naturalistic phone conversation in Experiment 1, but was altered by the cognitively-demanding content of some types of conversation in Experiment 2. The content of the conversation did not play a major role in distraction across other variables; both mundane and cognitively complex conversations distracted participants. Moreover, no significant associations between individual difference factors and susceptibility to distraction emerged.
Results may inform researchers, policy makers, and pedestrians themselves. Educational campaigns might discourage telephone conversations in pedestrian environments.
手机分心会危及机动车驾驶员的安全，但很少有研究关注分心行走。特别是大学生面临风险，他们经常在交通繁忙的地方行走，与其他年龄段相比，行人受伤率更高，而且经常使用手机。
本研究使用互动式沉浸式虚拟环境，通过两项实验研究了手机对话对大学生行人分心的影响。在第一项实验中，我们研究了当行人被自然对话分心时，是否会比不被分心时表现出更危险的行为。我们还考虑了个体差异因素是否会调节分心的影响。在第二项实验中，我们研究了三种形式的分心对行人安全的影响：（a）进行手机对话，（b）通过电话进行认知挑战性空间任务，以及（c）通过电话进行认知挑战性心算任务。
结果表明，手机对话会极大地分散大学生行人的注意力，除了一个例外。在实验 1 中，自然对话不会影响对交通的注意力，但在实验 2 中，一些类型的认知要求高的对话内容会改变注意力。对话的内容在其他变量的分心方面没有起到主要作用；无论是平凡的还是认知复杂的对话都会分散参与者的注意力。此外，个体差异因素与易受干扰之间没有显著关联。
研究结果可能为研究人员、政策制定者和行人自己提供信息。教育活动可能会劝阻行人环境中的电话交谈。
