The Same Temporal Affordances Viewed from Different Directions: How Children and Adults Bicycle Across Two Lanes of One-Way vs. Two-Way Traffic

We examined how child and adult bicyclists perceived the same temporal opportunities for crossing two lanes of continuous traffic when viewing those opportunities from the same direction or from opposite directions. Twelve-, 14-year-olds, and adults rode an instrumented bike through a virtual environment where they crossed two lanes of one-way or two-way traffic. Crossing opportunities consisted of aligned (far gap opens with or before near gap) or rolling (far gap opens after near gap) gap pairs. All age groups took gap pairs with significantly smaller overlaps and were significantly more selective in making gap pair choices (taking fewer gap pairs with smaller overlaps and more gap pairs with larger overlaps) when crossing rolling gap pairs in one-way than two-way traffic. In addition, 12-year-olds were more selective in making gap pair choices when crossing aligned gap pairs in one-way than two-way traffic. Twelve- and 14-year-olds also timed their entry into the near lane more tightly when crossing aligned gap pairs in the one-way than two-way condition. This work illustrates a new way to shift how people perceive and act on the same temporal affordances by engineering the perceptual information available and the looking behaviors required for perceiving complex temporal relations.