pedestrian signals with low-vision pedestrians

Abstract—Although approximately 80–85 % of the legally blind population has some residual vision, little research has examined the relative conspicuity of various types of visual pedestrian signals currently used by cities with this group of pedestrians. This research compared the relative conspicuity of an incandescent WALK sign, a white LED WALK sign, a blue LED WALK sign, and white and blue LED WALK signs that included an animated “eyes ” display with legally blind partici-pants who had some vision. All WALK signals were equated for brightness with the use of a N.I.S.T.-certified illuminance meter. Participants had to discriminate whether the test stimu-lus was a blue/white WALK sign or a blue/white DON’T WALK sign. Test stimuli were presented in randomized blocks of trials, and recognition distances were determined by having participants approach the test stimuli until they could identify them. Results indicated that there were no significant differ-ences between the incandescent and LED signals without the animated eyes or between the blue and white LED signals. However, Tukey’s method showed a significant contrast between the signals with the animated eyes display and signal