WOULD YOU NOTICE THIS UNICYCLING CLOWN IF HE RODE BY? THREE OUT OF FOUR PEOPLE USING A MOBILE PHONE DIDN’T
BY FIONA MACRAE SCIENCE REPORTER
21 October 2009
Daily Mail
© 2009 Associated Newspapers. All rights reserved
THE garish clothes, outsize shoes and bright red nose are enough to catch the eye.
And when the clown in question is riding a unicycle, surely the sight is impossible to miss.
Not, it seems, if you are talking on a mobile phone.
Three out of four men and women making calls failed to notice a clown riding past them on his one-wheeled bike, a study found.
They were so engrossed in their conversations that they were oblivious to what was going on around them.
The finding may seem unsurprising to anyone who has had to dodge mobile phone users on pavements and in supermarkets.
But it will also raise fresh questions about the wisdom of chatting on the phone while driving - even with a hands- free kit. For the study, researchers asked a clown to ride a unicycle around a university campus square and then questioned 151 passers-by on whether they had noticed him.
Some of the pedestrians were alone, listening to music or talking on mobile phones, and others were in pairs.
Given the novelty of a unicycling clown, the researchers from Western Washington University in the U.S. expected him to grab the attention of most.
As they put it: ‘Unicyclists are very rare on campus pathways and none of the authors have ever observed a unicycling clown on campus.’
Around half of those not using mobiles, including those plugged into their iPods, spotted the clown.
Those walking in twos were the most observant, with 81 per cent mentioning the clown when questioned.
In contrast, only 25 per cent of the mobile phone users had noticed the distraction, the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology reports. The high scores obtained by those listening to music show that electronic gadgetry in itself is not a distraction.
The success of those walking in pairs also proves it is not having a conversation itself that is a problem - rather, it is how you do it.
A variety of factors, including poor reception and an inability to judge the other person’s body language, mean talking on the telephone takes more effort than chatting to someone at your side. A second experiment revealed that the phone users weren’t even able to talk and walk in a straight line. Pedestrians using phones walked more slowly, changed direction more often and were less likely to nod or wave at acquaintances. Professor Ira Hyman said the experiments made it clear that chatting on a mobile can make even the simplest of tasks more difficult.
The effects could be magnified when carrying out more complex activities such as driving.
The professor said: 'Cell phone use causes people to be oblivious to their surroundings while engaged in even a simple task such as walking.
‘If people experience so much difficulty performing the task of walking when they’re on a cell phone, just think what this means when put into the context of driving safety.’
