Validating the Effectiveness of Recursive Blur Enhancement of Symbol Signs using Static and Dynamic Protocols

Abstract

Previous laboratory research has demonstrated that symbolic highway signs which have undergone the Recursive Blur Technique of visual enhancement exhibit significantly increased legibility distances over standard symbolic highway signs when using a critical detail identification task. This study sought to extend those findings to a new stimulus subset, and develop an identification task that is more conducive to a real-time (dynamic) driving environment. The effects of recursive blur enhancement on legibility distances were replicated using the critical detail identification task for both existing and novel stimuli, but the new holistic identification protocol proved to be an insensitive measure of the effect. Future research on this topic must be able to meet the temporal constraints posed by a dynamic driving environment without sacrificing the sensitivity of a detail-oriented identification protocol.