Standing and Walking Attention Visual Field (SWAVF) task: A new method to assess visuospatial attention during...

Visuospatial attention during walking has been associated with pedestrian safety and fall risks. However, visuospatial attention measures during walking remained under-explored. Current studies introduced a newly-developed Standing and Walking Visual Attention Field (SWAVF) task to assess visuospatial attention during walking and examined its reliability, validity, and stability. Thirty young adults completed a traditional computerized Attention Visual Field (AVF) task while sitting, and the SWAVF task under walking and standing settings. Nine participants also performed the SWAVF task under additional distraction conditions. Results showed good split-half reliability during standing (r = 0.70) and walking (r = 0.69), moderate concurrent validity with the sitting AVF task (r = 0.42), moderate convergent validity between the standing and walking settings (r = 0.69), good construct validity, and moderate rank-order stability (r = 0.53). Overall, the SWAVF task showed good psychometric properties. Potential applications to the evaluation of prosthetic and other exoskeleton devices, smart glasses, and ground-level traffic lights or signs were discussed.