Objective: This study was conducted for the purpose of examining gender-specific characteristics and learning effects on distance perception of moving visual stimuli.
Background: Distance perception during car driving is a very important process related to driver safety, and its characteristics should be studied from various perspectives. Although humans’ ability to perceive distance is known to be very accurate, individual differences are known to exist. Therefore, it is necessary to find out how distance perception characteristics appear according to gender and learning.
Method: In this study, we investigated the distance perception characteristics of moving stimuli using CPAD. CPAD is useful as a tool to test the cognitive-perceptual functions required for driving. An experimental stimulus consisting of two vertical lines that narrowed toward the top, several small horizontal lines, and a horizontal arrow bar moving up and down in the middle was used. The experiment was conducted in such a way that the subject pressed the joystick button when the arrow and the horizontal lines on both sides were aligned in a straight line. The subjects were 33 male and female college students (average 22.0, standard deviation 1.23), of which 16 were male (average 22.9, standard deviation 1.01) and 17 were female (average 21.1, standard deviation 0.68). The experiment was repeated three times for each subject.
Results: As the result, there was no significant difference in the number of correct distance perceptions and judgment times between men and women. The number of times the distance perception was correctly judged tended to significantly increase as the experiment was repeated. And although learning was significant up to the second experiment repetition, no significant learning occurred after that. Judgment time did not show a significant decrease as the experiment was repeated.
Conclusion: In this study, an experiment using CPAD was conducted to identify how distance perception while driving a car differs depending on gender and how learning effects occur in distance perception. Through experimental research, it was found that the distance perception ability between men and women shows similar characteristics. And it was found that learning about the accuracy of distance perception occurred very quickly in the beginning and then stabilized. On the other hand, it was found that there was almost no learning effect on the judgment time of distance perception. This study was conducted to investigate the characteristics of humans’ distance perception of moving objects while driving a car, and is judged to provide significant value.
Application: The results of this study provide academic results on human distance perception characteristics and can be used as important research results in future navigation information design and driver safety education or training method design.