Jan Theeuwes est professeur de Psychologie Cognitive à la Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam et a travaillé pendant dix ans pour l’institut TNO Human Factors aux Pays-Bas, dans le domaine de la sécurité routière. De par ses recherches sur l’attention et la perception visuelles, il a contribué au développement du concept de Self-explaining Road, maintenant appliqué à travers le monde. Cette notion consiste à concevoir des environnements routiers qui de par leur design même encouragent des comportements sécurisés et diminuent la gravité des accidents en cas d’erreur des usagers.

Date et heure : 30 novembre 2021, de 13h15 à 14h15 Lieu : Salle R52, Amphithéâtres de l’Europe

Abstract:

In this talk I will explain how basic findings from Cognitive Psychology can be used in an applied setting particularly how it can improve traffic safety. The central focus will be on how one can design the environment such that people know how to behave and what to expect. The underlying notion is that (road) environment should be self-explaining suggesting that the environment should be designed such that it elicits adequate and safe behavior. The idea of Self-Explaining Roads (SER) was first published in 1995 (Theeuwes and Godthelp, 1995 Safety Science) and over the course of 25 years this approach has become the leading principle of road design worldwide. I will outline the theoretical grounding,  the basic principles and its successful implementation worldwide.

Biography:

Jan Theeuwes is professor of Cognitive Psychology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, director of the Institute Brain and Behavior Amsterdam (iBBA) and visiting professor at the William James Research Center in Lisboa, Portugal. He has a degree in Mechanical Engineering and Experimental Psychology. From 1988 until 1998 he worked at TNO Human Factors conducting applied research on traffic safety. He became full professor in 1999 in Amsterdam. In 2010 he was elected into the prestigious Royal Dutch Academy of Science (KNAW). He was the president of ESCOP from 2016-2018. Theeuwes’s work has been supported by several grants including two advanced ERC grants, one in 2012 on reward processing and one in 2019 on statistical learning Theeuwes’ main interest is to acquire fundamental knowledge on a wide array of topics including perception, attention, learning, memory and emotion using several different methods, such as behavior (RT measurement), eye tracking, functional MRI, psychophysiological recordings (e.g., ERP/EEG), patient work and modeling. He is most well-known for his research on attentional and oculomotor control including the ability to handle visual distraction by salient objects.