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Using a smartphone on the move: do visual constraints explain why we slow walking speed?

Yes / Viewing one’s smartphone whilst walking commonly leads to a slowing of walking. Slowing walking-speed may occur because of safety concerns or because of visual constraints. We determine how walking-induced phone motion affects the ability to read on-screen information.
Phone-reading performance (PRP) was assessed whilst participants walked on a treadmill at various speeds. The fastest speed was repeated, wearing an elbow-brace (Braced) or with the phone mounted stationary (Fixed). An audible cue (‘text-alert’), indicated participants had 2 seconds to lift/view the phone and read aloud a series of digits. PRP was the number of digits read correctly. Each condition was repeated 5 times. 3D-motion analyses determined phone-motion relative to the head, from which the variability in acceleration in viewing distance, and in the gaze angles in the up-down and right-left directions were assessed.
A main-effect of condition indicated PRP decreased with walking speed; particularly so for the Braced and Fixed conditions (p=0.022). Walking condition also affected the phone’s relative motion (p / Research Development Fund Publication Prize Award winner, Oct 2021.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:BRADFORD/oai:bradscholars.brad.ac.uk:10454/18641
Date15 November 2021
CreatorsRubio Barañano, Alejandro, Faisal, Muhammad, Barrett, Brendan T., Buckley, John
Source SetsBradford Scholars
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeArticle, Published version
Rights(c) 2021 The Authors. This is an Open Access article distributed under the Creative Commons CC-BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), CC-BY

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