Tests of Blind Pedestrians’ Use of Traffic Sounds for Street-crossing Alignment

This article reports three experiments that assessed pedestrians’ ability to use traffic sounds to establish “alignment,” the initial trajectory of a street crossing. The subjects were well practiced blind adults and unpracticed sighted adults, the dependent variables were variable error and constant error, and the independent variables were the characteristics of traffic and the subjects’ visual experience. The findings document the usefulness of traffic sounds, but show that traffic sounds cannot be used to guarantee accurate alignment. The characteristics of traffic had similar effects on the precision of alignment (variable error) of the blind and sighted subjects, but differentially affected their directional bias (constant error). The implications of the findings for orientation and mobility instructors are discussed.