The role of non-verbal working memory in pedestrian visual search

• Children’s visual search was overall less efficient than adults’.
• Working memory creates a “bottleneck” for cognitive processing of safety cues.
• Results highlight the importance of considering cognitive developmental factors.

Visual search skills are important for safe pedestrian decision-making. Previous literature has used basic measures of attention-to-traffic and made some progress in linking cognition with pedestrian visual search. However, much remains to be discovered about what stimuli pedestrians actually attend to or which cognitive processing abilities are involved. We examined the unique contribution of spatial and visual working memory in pedestrian visual search. A sample of 21 undergraduates and 40 children participated in a spatial working memory task and computerized visual search task. Eye movements were recorded throughout the visual search task to obtain pedestrian scanning behaviors. Developmental differences were found in working memory and pedestrian visual search. Working memory also explained a significant amount of variance for a number of visual search indices. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed and future directions are suggested.