Citation

Timmis MA, Bijl H, Turner K, Basevitch I, Taylor MJD, van Paridon KN. PLoS One 2017; 12(6): e0179802.

Affiliation

Cambridge Centre for Sport and Exercise Sciences (CCSES), Department of Sport and Exercise Sciences, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Public Library of Science)

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0179802

PMID

28665942

Abstract

Pedestrians regularly engage with their mobile phone whilst walking. The current study investigated how mobile phone use affects where people look (visual search behaviour) and how they negotiate a floor based hazard placed along the walking path. Whilst wearing a mobile eye tracker and motion analysis sensors, participants walked up to and negotiated a surface height change whilst writing a text, reading a text, talking on the phone, or without a phone. Differences in gait and visual search behaviour were found when using a mobile phone compared to when not using a phone. Using a phone resulted in looking less frequently and for less time at the surface height change, which led to adaptations in gait by negotiating it in a manner consistent with adopting an increasingly cautious stepping strategy. When using a mobile phone, writing a text whilst walking resulted in the greatest adaptions in gait and visual search behaviour compared to reading a text and talking on a mobile phone.

FINDINGS indicate that mobile phone users were able to adapt their visual search behaviour and gait to incorporate mobile phone use in a safe manner when negotiating floor based obstacles.

Language: en