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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 18, 2026

Measuring the Behavioral Effects of Intraocular Scatter

Measuring the Behavioral Effects of Intraocular Scatter

Published on: February 18, 2021

Discomfort glare influences covert visual attention.

Mengtian Lou¹, Roland Brémond², Catherine Gabaude³

¹CoSys Lab, Université Gustave Eiffel, France; LAPEA, Université Paris Cité, France.

Acta Psychologica

|June 16, 2026

Summary

Night driving glare causes discomfort, degrading covert attention and response times. However, gaze accuracy surprisingly improves with weak glare but worsens with strong glare.

Keywords:

Covert attention Discomfort glare Eye-tracker Posner effect

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Last Updated: Jun 18, 2026

Measuring the Behavioral Effects of Intraocular Scatter

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Area of Science:

Psychology
Vision Science
Human Factors

Background:

Night driving presents challenges due to glare from headlights, reducing visual sensitivity and causing discomfort.
Discomfort from glare may impact visual perception by interfering with covert spatial attention mechanisms.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate how glare-induced discomfort affects covert spatial attention.
To determine the relationship between glare intensity, discomfort, and visual-motor performance.

Main Methods:

Replication of Posner's covert attention experiment under weak and strong glare conditions.
Measurement of reaction time (RT), motor-response time, visual response time, and eye-tracking gaze accuracy.
Inclusion of 31 participants performing target detection tasks with cued and uncued locations.

Main Results:

Glare-induced discomfort was found to degrade covert attention, showing a dose-effect relationship.
Gaze accuracy unexpectedly improved under weak glare conditions compared to no glare.
Gaze accuracy decreased with strong glare compared to weak glare.

Conclusions:

Glare discomfort negatively impacts covert attention and response times during visual tasks.
The effect of glare on gaze accuracy is complex, with improvements at lower intensities and detriments at higher intensities.
Findings have implications for understanding driver performance and safety during night driving.