Children and youngster's gaze behaviour when cycling in familiar environments

Active travel is beneficial for individuals and society in many ways. As transportation habits are formed at a young age, active school transport should be promoted. However, young children are often portrayed as not being able to cope with the demands traffic imposes on them. Most studies tend to confirm the notion that older children perform better than younger children, however, they are usually conducted in controlled environments that are unfamiliar to the participants. Here, 28 participants in two age groups (6–12 and 13–18 years) cycled their usual way to school to guarantee familiarity with the environment. They wore eye trackers, and the surroundings were filmed by a camera on the handlebars and by another camera mounted on the bicycle of an experimenter, who followed the participant. For each trip, all attentional target areas were identified based on infrastructure layout, traffic rules and turning direction. It was coded whether the children monitored these areas. Additionally, glance targets and glance purpose were coded. More than 80 % of all target areas were monitored. Regardless of age, a higher number of simultaneous target areas increased the likelihood that some relevant target areas were missed. The glance distribution across different types of target areas did not vary between the age groups. An increase in the number of simultaneous target areas led to a decrease in spare visual capacity and an increase in glances dedicated to checking for traffic. Overall, children in both age groups were generally attentive in their familiar environment. Difficulties were associated with a higher number of simultaneous target areas. A more controlled setup is needed to identify potentially modifying factors, and a comparison with adults is needed to for a fair valuation of the children’s performance.