Pedestrians, vehicles, and cell phones

With cellular phones and portable music players becoming a staple in everyday life. questions have arisen regarding the attentional deficits that might occur when such devices are used while performing other tasks. Here, we used a street-crossing task in an immersive virtual environment to test how this sort of divided attention affects pedestrian behavior when crossing a busy street. Thirty-six participants navigated through a series of unsigned intersections by walking on a manual treadmill in a virtual environment. While crossing, participants were undistracted, engaged in a hands free cell phone conversation, or listening to music on an iPod. Pedestrians were less likely to successfully cross the road when conversing on a cell phone than when listening to music, even though they took more time to initiate their crossing when conversing on a cell phone (similar to 1.5 s). This success rate difference was driven largely by failures to cross the road in the allotted trial time period (30 s), suggesting that when conversing on a cell phone pedestrians are less likely to recognize and act on crossing opportunities. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.