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news
Dr Barbara Schmidt demonstrattes helmet studyStudy finds that wearing a cycle helmet may diminish ability to assess risk
Wearing a cycle helmet may encourage people to feel safer and could therefore hamper their ability to make decisions related to risk-taking, according to a new study from Germany.
The laboratory-based study was carried out by researchers from the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, in co-operation with the Canadian University of Victoria, and has been published as an open-access article in the journal Psychophysiology.
It references research including a 2016 study, also laboratory-based, by Dr Ian Walker and Dr Tim Gamble of the University of Bath which concluded that wearing a cycle helmet leads to a greater propensity to take risks.
> Wearing a cycle helmet leads to more risk-taking, study finds
The 40 subjects in the Jena study were split into two groups of 20 people, each comprising 10 men and 10 women.
The control group did not wear cycle helmets, while members of the group that did were deliberately misled about the nature of the study, being told that it was to measure their eye movements through an eye tracker mounted on the helmet.
Members of both groups were required to play a card-based computer game in which small amounts of money could be won and where they were presented with high-risk and low-risk options to enable their decision-making in relation to risk to be assessed, with all participants wearing an electroencephalogram (EEG) so researchers could see what was happening within their brains.
They discovered that the “Frontal Midline Theta Power” – described as “the brain activity that characterises the weighing up of alternatives in the decision-making process” – was much less pronounced among those subjects wearing a cycle helmet.
“Therefore, we conclude that the helmet clearly has an impact on decision-making in the risk game,” explained neuroscientist Dr Barbara Schmidt, who led the study.
“Obviously, participants associate a feeling of safety with wearing the bike helmet,” she continued, explaining that cognitive control – the term psychologists use to describe the neuronal mechanism of weighing things up, is less pronounced when a helmet is worn.
“It is possible that this is a priming effect,” she said. “This means that the significance we associate with a helmet automatically has a cognitive effect that is also measurable in the brain.
“Investigating neuronal parameters allows us to learn more about why we act the way we do – and how this can be influenced.
“In the present study, we used the very subtle manipulation of wearing a bike helmet. But safety can also be suggested more clearly, for example during hypnosis,” added Dr Schmidt, who also works in that field.
“It is stunning to observe how suggestions can influence brain activity,” she said. “In the hypnotic state, participants are very open to suggestions, for example, the suggestion of a safe place.
“Wearing a bike helmet can also be interpreted as a suggestion on a subconscious level. The current study shows that even such a subtle intervention significantly affects decision-making processes.
“Experiments like this help us to understand the mechanisms behind the effect of suggestions on decision-making processes in more depth,” she concluded.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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27 comments
Without reading the full blurb, is this not a refresh of the 'Superman Theory'
Is that the theory that you take more risks if you (1) wear a cape, and (2) wear your pants outside your tights?
I think he's referring to the theory that before Superman, there were no metahumans on record. No superheroes or supervillains existed. But after Superman came, there was an exponential increase in metahuman activity, specifically in America compared to the rest of the world. This led to a conspiracy theory that the American government, after Superman’s arrival, manufactured all of their metahumans. They are then assigned public hero or villain roles in society as a passive way to show America's dominance compared to the rest of the world.
(Doomsday Clock series)
No, I think my interpretation makes more sense
Wearing a cape on a bike probably indicates an existing propensity to take risks, so that would be a confounding factor. Not hard to imagine how that could go horribly wrong.
As an Aussie who has endured compulsory helmet laws since 1991, I find the study result hard to believe. We wear it because we have to, not because we are under the illusion a styrofoam colander will do anything to protect us. It’s been a part of our cycling experience for so long that it’s just a hat you wear, no more and no less. Safety is something you do, not something you wear.
But here in the UK it's not compulsory, so the helmet advocates all have to say that safety is indeed "something you wear".
That's not the point at all.
Wasn't there some study that said drivers drove closer to cyclists with helmets?
Yup - that was another of Dr Walker's studies.
It seems the main risk a helmet protects against is getting a bum rap from the press and legal system when you get knocked off your bike. Ditto hi vis.
Certainly the press demonstrate their utter ignorance whenever any mildly famous celeb rides a bike without a helmet, but the legal system doesn't differentiate. There has been a single case where failure to wear a helmet was considered contributory negligence, but under such unique circs that it doesn't make case law.
Many insurance companies will try to reduce payout to cyclist victims for failure to wear a helmet, but this is always withdrawn if the cyclist persists and refuses to agree. Don't fall for it, and get free legal representation through CUK or other organisation.
And drivers use the non-wearing of a helmet and hi-vis as a handy get out when they do something stupid. "Yes, well, I know pulled out on you because I wasn't looking but, hey, it can't be my fault, you're....[grasping for anything].....not wearing a helmet! How incredibly irresponsible of you! You were asking for it!"
I don't wear a helmet or hi-vis myself. Been there, done that, dressed up like a banana. Didn't make any difference to how I was treated by drivers. I could commute with the Eiffel Tower on my head, lit up by a million festive lights, and some drivers still wouldn't see me. It is what it is.
My tips for a longer life? Don't trust anyone behind a steering wheel; keep well clear of buses, lorries and large vans; watch the 'body language' of how cars are being driven and steer clear of the obvious nutters, even if it means stopping and letting them go ahead; and don't filter on the inside. You're welcome.
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This is the elegance of this little (and it is little, hopefully to be expanded) study it has taken the cycling out of wearing a cycle helmet. We take risks when gambling and playing cards and those risks are easy to quantify, risk taking when cycling is not even in a simulator. It says to me that if I start to play online poker again I should wear my helmet, as I'm often a little too conservative and risk adverse, and maybe I should ditch the helmet on the bike, though these days I tend to pootle, and fear the pain of falling off. In fact the brambles and stinging nettles of the overgrown bridleways are getting a bit owwy, but I'm not wearing shin and kneepads just for that.
The way that government and charity funded research should be published in an open way is a step in the right direction, though meaning that the quality journals will have to find their own way to fund themselves effectively.
I am just trying to work out what risks the subjects were exposed to playing cards whilst sat in a comfy chair. Surely they could have at least come up with a cycling simulator or similar and actually sat them on a bike.
I seem to recall that was done, and the results were similarly dismissed by the helmet zealots as being unrepresentative. What can't be dismissed is the data from Australia and New Zealand, which shows that, at best, helmets are ineffective.
That's the point. There were no physical risks which a helmet might protect against, but people still took more risks.
Someone really needs to tell my wife that if I don't wear a helmet then I'm likely to take less risks, so would be safer (all other things being equal)...
This research confirms the body of research about risk compensation, where people take more risks if they feel safer, or maintain the same level of perceived risk, which increases as they are given more stuff which they think makes them safe. This phenomenon has been demonstrated many times, usually with car drivers, but there is research which shows that helmetted cyclists have more collisions.
Since most people think that cycle helmets are much more effective than they really are, the result of a blatantly biased media and thousands of mistaken helmet saved my life stories, the extra risks taken overwhelm the very limited protection of the helmet. This is one of the reasons that helmets have never been shown to reduce risk in the real world, and with more than twenty-five years of mandatory helmets in Australia and New Zealand, this is now irrefutable.
What keeps us safe is fear, and if that fear is reduced by something which doesn't actually work, the effects will be at best zero.
It's all true. The other day on my commute i put a helmet on and did tailwhip down the town hall stairs. I was unable to stop myself. When i took it off i rode sensibly. Weird.
Surely i can ride like twat with a helmet on now and claim diminished responsibility?
So wearing a helmet affects our ability to play cards? And people get paid to come up with this stuff?
There was a reward for guessing right but what you don't realise is that an electric shock was administered if they guessed higher or lower and got it wrong.
Typical, a nice juicy article to spawn a helmet debate and BTBS is still on their ban.
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I was expecting him to be the first poster!
What did he get banned for?
I think it was for an anti-semitic comment.
I wonder if sitting in a 2,000 kilo steel cage surrounded by airbags has any effect on your ability to asses risk?