Clear Safety Signs: E Germany wins versus W Germany

Safety signs are one area in which, according to this study, East Germany ultimately triumphed over West Germany:

“Should I Stay or Should I Go – Cognitive Conflict in Multi-Attribute Signals Probed with East and West German ‘Ampelmännchen’ Traffic Signs,” Claudia Peschke, Bettina Olk [pictured here], Claus C. Hilgetag, PLoS ONE 8(5), May 24, 2013, e64712. The authors, at Jacobs University Bremen, Germany, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Germany, and Boston University, USA, explain:

“In post-unification Germany, lingering conflicts between East and West Germans have found some unusual outlets, including a debate of the relative superiority of East and West German ‘Ampelmännchen’ pedestrian traffic signs. In our study, we probed the visual efficacy of East and West German Ampelmännchen signs with a Stroop-like conflict task. We found that the distinctive East German man-with-hat figures were more resistant to conflicting information, and in turn produced greater interference when used as distractors.”

(Thanks to investigator Geoffrey Miller for bringing this to our attention.)