Effectiveness of Elongated Tactile Clues for Providing Directional Information to the Hands of Blind and Visually Impaired Pedestrians Before Crossing Intersections
When blind and visually impaired persons (BVIPs) attempt to walk on crosswalks, certain clues for the walking direction is essential. Therefore, short tactile arrows are employed. However, our previous study has shown that a minimum length of 100 mm for a tactile arrow was necessary to obtain moderate effectiveness and that even longer clues with a minimum length of 100 mm did not distinctly increase the accuracy of the direction. In this study, we evaluated a novel method that enables BVIPs to continuously trace elongated tactile clues while BVIPs walk toward a crosswalk. Ten BVIPs participated in this experiment. The BVIPs were instructed to walk in the direction predicted from various elongated tactile clues using them either by the dorsum or palm of the hand. A walkway, 5 m long and 3 m wide, that was assumed to be a crosswalk, was positioned in front of the starting point. The elongated tactile clues (tactile bars) that were examined had a diameter of 35 mm and a length of 100, 250, 500, or 1,000 mm. The subjects were asked to walk while continuously touching the guide bar and maintain the same direction after leaving the crosswalk. To evaluate the effect of the length of the tactile bars, the veering tendency was measured as an angle between the middle line of the walking pathway and the straight line that connects the distal end of the tactile clue to the trajectory of subjects located 3 m beyond the starting point. The confidence level of the direction taking strategy obtained by this method was measured after each trial. Subjects chose one among “not confident”, “slightly not confident”, “not very sure”, “rather confident”, and “confident”. The veering angle (VA) tended to decrease as the length of the tactile clue increased. This effect was particularly prominent when BVIPs used their palms instead of the dorsa. The difference in the VA between the subject’s preferred and non-preferred hand was not significant regardless of the length of the guide bars. When participants used tactile bars that were shorter than (or equal to) 250 mm, subjects often reported lower confidence in terms of their direction judgment. When the length of bars exceeded 500 mm, the subjects reported substantially higher confidence. Based on these results, tactile bars with lengths greater than 500 mm were effective in indicating an accurate direction and providing higher self-confidence for direction taking strategy. These results indicated that the new method, in which the subjects can continuously touch the direction clue during the early phase of walking, is useful.
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Availability:
- Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/00978515
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Authors:
- Takato, Jinro
- Nakamura, Takabun
- Tauchi, Masaki
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Conference:
- TRANSED 2018: 15th International Conference on Mobility and Transport for Older Adults and People with Disabilities
- Location: Taipei , China
- Date: 2019-11-12 to 2019-11-15
- Publication Date: 2020-4
Language
- English
Media Info
- Media Type: Digital/other
- Features: Figures; References;
- Pagination: pp 121-126
- Monograph Title: TRANSED 2018: 15th International Conference on Mobility and Transport for Older Adults and People with Disabilities
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Serial:
- Transportation Research Circular
- Issue Number: E-C262
- Publisher: Transportation Research Board
- ISSN: 0097-8515
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Direction signs; Intersections; Pedestrian movement; Tactile perception; Traffic safety; Visually impaired persons
- Subject Areas: Design; Highways; Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Safety and Human Factors; Society;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01738993
- Record Type: Publication
- Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
- Created Date: May 11 2020 4:06PM