Brainwave 2
The unique BIKE SYMBOL LIGHT can speed up reaction times in drivers; it also allows them to identify cyclists on the road more quickly and means their response times are faster as a result
Research findings demonstrated that since drivers will be able to identify cyclists using Brainy Bike Lights® on the road more quickly, translating into vital extra milliseconds and giving them more time to brake, or stop significantly more quickly - should they need to.
“Respondents in the speeded discrimination tests responded more than 100 ms faster (that’s equivalent to 1.34 m for a car traveling at 30MPH) to Brainy Bike Lights® vs a traditional bike light.
From the results it is hypothesised that the semantic meaning of the cyclist symbol on the Brainy Bike Lights® made it easy for our participants (and hence, presumably for car drivers more generally) to distinguish that it was a bike light (and potentially also triggering associations relevant to the cyclist symbol), as compared to the other lights that could potentially signify either a bike or non–bike target.
These findings imply that the Brainy Bike Lights® may offer a significantly more effective means of informing other road users of the presence of a cyclist than the use of more traditional bike lights that tend to resemble other vehicle lights more.”
Crossmodal Research Laboratory,Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford 2013
The symbol creates positive behavioural priming: making drivers more conscious of cyclists’ potential movements as well as priming their own likely evasive/protective reactions in relation to cyclists. Priming (or activation of any sort) of knowledge in memory makes it more accessible and therefore more influential in processing new stimuli (Richardson-Klavehn & Bjork, 1988).
Research has shown that an illuminated symbol increases cognitive conspicuity ie, in this context it allows for rapid identification of the bike and cyclist and it triggers quicker top down processing.