Citation

Hou G, Lu G. Transp. Res. F Traffic Psychol. Behav. 2018; 59: 236-243.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.trf.2018.08.020

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Traffic signs are used on highways and in urban transportation facilities. As a critical element of driving safety, traffic signs are generally evaluated using questionnaires and by measuring reaction time. This study investigated the cognitive processing of traffic signs by measuring event-related potential (ERP) and explored semantic and emotional processing. A stimulus 1-stimulus 2 paradigm was adopted. Traffic sign-word pairs were organized into semantically congruent and semantically incongruent groups. Larger N400 amplitude and theta activity were simultaneously elicited by semantically incongruent traffic sign-word pairs, which indicated the semantic distance between traffic signs and words. A greater late positive potential was elicited by semantically congruent traffic sign-word pairs, which reflected participants' positive emotional arousal. Additionally, this study measured ERP to assess semantic distance and emotional arousal in the traffic sign understanding process.

Language: en

Keywords

Emotional arousal; ERPs; Neuroergonomics; Semantically congruent; Traffic sign understanding