Department of Psychology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama.
Queen Maud University College of Early Childhood Education, Trondheim, Norway.
Traffic Inj Prev. 2024;25(7):986-992. doi: 10.1080/15389588.2024.2358103. Epub 2024 Jun 4.
Child pedestrian injuries are a significant public health problem, largely because children have underdeveloped cognitive-perceptual capacity to judge traffic unsupervised. This study used a virtual reality (VR) environment to examine the impact of children's age, as well as sex and sensation-seeking personality, on pedestrian behavior in different risk contexts.
405 Norwegian children (7-10-year-olds) engaged in street-crossing scenarios within a VR environment. Children crossed a bicycle path and urban roadway six times, each with increasing density and complexity of traffic. Hits and near hits were recorded. Self-reported sensation-seeking personality was assessed.
Children were more likely to experience crashes in the tasks that offered higher probability risk. Overall, 106 children crossed safely in all tasks. Dangerous crossings were associated with male sex, higher thrill and intensity seeking personality, and denser traffic. Age was not related to any traffic safety outcomes.
As expected, children were struck by vehicles more often in complex traffic contexts than in less complex ones. The results support previous findings and suggest that boys and sensation seekers have elevated risk of pedestrian injury, and that individual differences in children, rather than age alone, must be considered when determining if children are capable of safely negotiating traffic unsupervised.
儿童行人受伤是一个重大的公共卫生问题，主要是因为儿童的认知知觉能力尚未发育完全，无法在无人监督的情况下判断交通状况。本研究使用虚拟现实 (VR) 环境来研究儿童年龄、性别和寻求刺激的个性对不同风险环境下行人行为的影响。
405 名挪威儿童（7-10 岁）在 VR 环境中参与了过街场景。儿童在自行车道和城市道路上各穿越六次，每次的交通密度和复杂性都有所增加。记录了碰撞和险些碰撞的情况。自我报告的寻求刺激的个性也进行了评估。
儿童在提供更高概率风险的任务中更有可能发生事故。总体而言，106 名儿童在所有任务中都安全通过。危险的过马路行为与男性性别、更高的刺激和强度寻求个性以及更密集的交通有关。年龄与任何交通安全结果均无关。
正如预期的那样，儿童在复杂的交通环境中被车辆撞击的频率高于在不太复杂的环境中。研究结果支持先前的研究结果，并表明男孩和寻求刺激的人更有可能受伤，在确定儿童是否能够在无人监督的情况下安全过马路时，必须考虑儿童的个体差异，而不仅仅是年龄。
