Roadside advertising and the distraction of driver’s attention

Adam, Tarnowski; Anna, Olejniczak-Serowiec; Agnieszka, Marszalec · 2017 · DOAJ

DOI: 10.1051/matecconf/201712203010

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Summary

This paper investigates the impact of roadside advertising on driver distraction, specifically examining how advertising density and content affect visual attention, cognitive load, and working memory. The research addresses the growing concern that aggressive advertising competes for drivers' limited attentional resources, potentially leading to inattentional blindness and increased crash risk. The study aims to develop evidence-based guidelines for placing roadside advertising by analyzing whether these distractions impair situational awareness and if individual attention capacity or specific advertisement features moderate these effects. The authors conducted two studies. Study I reanalyzed data from the EYEVID project involving 45 experienced drivers who completed a simulated 6-kilometer drive in an Opel Astra-based simulator. The route varied between high and low advertising density. Researchers measured visual attention focus using eye-tracking technology (SMI Glasses) to determine the percentage of time eyes were engaged with the road, mirrors, and cockpit. Cognitive load was assessed via average pupil size, and individual attention capabilities were evaluated using a Pop-Up Test. Study II involved 31 amateur drivers who viewed 38 photos of driving scenes, some containing advertisements. The advertisements varied by content: no advertisement, non-human, human (dressed), and human (sexual/underwear). Participants were asked to identify traffic signs in the images, with the number of errors serving as a measure of working memory performance. The results from Study I indicated that high advertising density significantly decreased the proportion of time drivers focused on critical driving areas compared to low density conditions. However, advertising density did not significantly affect average pupil size, suggesting no measurable increase in cognitive load. Furthermore, individual attention capacity did not moderate the impact of advertising on visual focus or cognitive load. Study II found that the presence of any advertisement significantly impaired working memory performance compared to scenes without advertisements. Specifically, advertisements featuring human representations caused greater distraction than those without humans. Contrary to hypotheses, there was no significant difference in distraction levels between sexual and non-sexual human advertisements. The findings confirm that roadside advertising acts as a significant distractor, reducing visual attention focus and impairing working memory essential for situational awareness. The presence of human figures in advertisements exacerbates this distraction, while sexual content does not further increase the effect. The lack of moderation by individual attention capacity suggests that even drivers with high attention performance are susceptible to these distractions. These results support the need for evidence-based regulations on roadside advertising placement and content to mitigate safety risks.

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Topics

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• external distraction
• visual
• cognitive
• auditory
• public messaging
• distraction detection algorithms

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• Theoretical Contribution: theory or model, conceptual framework