Abstract
Locomotor adaptations, as required for community walking, rely heavily on the sense of vision. Little is known, however, about gaze behavior during pedestrian interactions while ambulating in the community. Our objective was to characterize gaze behavior while walking in a community environment and interacting with pedestrians of different locations and directions. Twelve healthy young individuals were assessed as they walked in a shopping mall from a pre-set location to a goal located 20 m ahead. Eye movements were recorded with a binocular eye-tracker and temporal distance factors were assessed using wearable sensors from a full-body motion capture system. Participants exhibited more numerous and longer gaze episodes on pedestrians (GEP) that were walking in the same direction as themselves vs. those that were in the opposite direction. The relative durations of GEPs, however, showed no significant differences between pedestrians walking in the same vs. opposite direction. Longer durations of GEPs were also observed for centrally located pedestrians compared to those located on either side, but this was the case only for pedestrians that were walking in the same direction as participants. In addition, pedestrians in the centre, and even more so those on the right, were fixated at farther distances compared to those on the left. Results indicate that healthy young individuals modulate their gaze behavior as a function of the location and direction of pedestrians when ambulating in a community environment. The observed modulation is interpreted as being caused by an interplay between collision risk, pedestrian visibility, presence of leaders and social conventions (right-sided circulation). Present results also establish baseline measures for the quantification of defective visuomotor strategies in individuals with mobility disorders.
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Data presented in the context of this study cannot be made available, as this option was not included in the consent forms signed by participants. As per these consent forms, the data are to be destroyed by the research team 5 years after the end of the project.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank all individuals who participated in this study, as well as Cominar REIT, owner of the Alexis Nihon Mall, for granting our research team access to their shopping mall. This study was funded by the Fonds de la recherche en santé du Québec (FRQS) and The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)—RGPIN-2016-04471. HJ was the recipient of scholarship from the McGill Faculty of Medicine and CRIR.
Funding
This study was funded by the Fonds de la recherche en santé du Québec (FRQS) and The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)—RGPIN-2016–04471. HJ was the recipient of scholarship from the McGill Faculty of Medicine and CRIR.
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HJ was responsible for data collection, analysis and generating the draft of the manuscript and figures. AL and WC also contributed to data collection and analysis. All authors contributed to the study design and edited the manuscript.
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Joshi, H.B., Cybis, W., Kehayia, E. et al. Gaze behavior during pedestrian interactions in a community environment: a real-world perspective. Exp Brain Res 239, 2317–2330 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-021-06145-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-021-06145-1