Citation

Woltman HL, Stanton RH, Stearns RA. Transp. Res. Rec. 1984; 996: 2-6.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1984, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences USA, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Signs that provide guidance or navigational information to the motorist are color coded green to facilitate rapid identification and to ensure a clear and unambiguous meaning of the nature of the information. The green color code is not always mandatory at night. The sign backgrounds may have nonreflective green backgrounds that appear black at night unless separately lighted. A laboratory method of evaluating the effectiveness of the green nighttime sign color is presented. This method isolates only the variables of interest--the effectiveness of white-ongreen versus white-on-black as a means of providing attention value or target value. The method described uses a video presentation of six identical pairs of highway scenes in which only the color of the guide sign varied. Scenes were presented for a time period of 3.5 seconds, which is comparable to detection and recognition models. The sequence was shown to 313 subjects--all licensed drivers representing all age groups at a variety of locations nationwide. The analysis of results indicated that greater scene complexity and increasing driver age contributed to an increased error rate for both color combinations. There were fewer errors in the recognition and identification of the white-on-green guide signs than the white-on-black signs. For a combination of scenes, this accuracy was 3.2 times greater for the white-on-green signs and is attributable to the green night color of the signs.

Record URL:
http://onlinepubs.trb.org/Onlinepubs/trr/1984/996/996-002.pdf

Language: en

Keywords

TRAFFIC SIGNS, SIGNALS AND MARKINGS; COLOR - Monitoring; MOTOR TRANSPORTATION - Traffic Control