International Road Signs: Interpretability and Training Techniques

Abstract
The drivers in a battalion about to be deployed to Germany were taught the meanings of international road signs using one of the following techniques: Sign Only, in which the road signs were presented via a slide projector and the names of the slides were provided orally by the instructor; Sign Elaboration, which was identical to the Sign Only condition except that a mnemonic cue was provided to facilitate retention of the sign's meaning; and a Standard Control condition, in which a lecture presentation was supplemented with standard training aids. No significant differences were obtained in the performances of the groups. The analyses of the interpretability of individual signs indicated that there was good reason to question the interpretability of many international road signs. Apparently, the more abstract the symbolic representation, the lower the interpretability. Training should stress selective instructional strategies for the more abstract signs and have a longer instruction period.

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