Drivers’ attitudes toward imperfect distraction mitigation strategies

Studies were conducted to assess driver acceptance of and trust in distraction mitigation strategies. Previous studies have shown that in-vehicle tasks undermine driver safety, and that there is a need for strategies to reduce the effects of in-vehicle distractions. Trust and acceptance of such strategies strongly influence their effectiveness. Different strategies intended to reduce distraction were categorized in a taxonomy. Focus groups were conducted to help refine this taxonomy and explore driver acceptance issues related to these strategies. A driving simulator experiment was then conducted using two of the strategies: an advising strategy that warns drivers of potential dangers and a locking strategy that prevents the driver from continuing a distracting task. These strategies were presented to 16 middle-aged and 12 older drivers in two modes (auditory, visual) with two levels of adaptation (true, false). Older drivers accepted and trusted the strategies more than middle-aged drivers. Regardless of age, all drivers preferred strategies that provided alerts in a visual mode rather than an auditory mode. When the system falsely adapted to the road situation, trust in the strategies declined. The findings show that display modality has a strong effect on driver acceptance and trust, and that older drivers are more trusting and accepting of distraction mitigation technology even when it operates imperfectly.     

Interference by process, not content, determines semantic auditory distraction

Distraction by irrelevant background sound of visually-based cognitive tasks illustrates the vulnerability of attentional selectivity across modalities. Four experiments centred on auditory distraction during tests of memory for visually-presented semantic information. Meaningful irrelevant speech disrupted the free recall of semantic category-exemplars more than meaningless irrelevant sound (Experiment 1). This effect was exacerbated when the irrelevant speech was semantically related to the to-be-remembered material (Experiment 2). Importantly, however, these effects of meaningfulness and semantic relatedness were shown to arise only when instructions emphasized recall by category rather than by serial order (Experiments 3 and 4). The results favor a process-oriented, rather than a structural, approach to the breakdown of attentional selectivity and forgetting: performance is impaired by the similarity of process brought to bear on the relevant and irrelevant material, not the similarity in item content.     

卡车驾驶员的夜间视力研究

运用ＹＪＳ—ＩＩ型夜间视觉检查仪对２３８名男性卡车驾驶员的暗适应时间和夜间视力进行了测试。结果表明：卡车驾驶员暗适应时间的９５％上限值为５９．６７秒;卡车驾驶员暗适应时间和夜间视力的年龄阈值为４０岁;事故组与安全组卡车驾驶员暗适应时间存在显著差异（Ｐ＜０．０５）,事故组卡车驾驶员的暗适应时间较长,表明卡车驾驶员的暗适应能力差是引起夜间交通事故的重要因素。研究结果为驾驶员的选拔,安全教育以及制订预防夜间交通事放对策提供一定的理论依据。     

A behavioral analysis of incentive prompts for motivating seat belt use

The seat belt usage of drivers was observed at the entrance to two campus parking lots during morning arrival times. After 11 days of baseline, fliers which prompted seat belt wearing were handed to drivers of incoming vehicles. At one parking lot all fliers offered a chance to win a prize (noncontingent rewards); while at the second lot only those fliers given to seat belt wearers included a chance to win a prize (contingent rewards). After 24 consecutive observation days, these interventions were removed for 14 days of withdrawal. The recording of vehicle license plates enabled an analysis of belt usage per individual over repeated exposures to the experimental conditions. At the lot with the contingent reward intervention, mean belt usage was 26.3% during baseline, 45.7% during treatment, and 37.9% during withdrawal. At the noncontingent reward lot, the mean percentage of belt wearing was 22.2% during baseline, 24.1% during treatment, and 21.8% during withdrawal. The analysis of repeated exposures per individual verified that only contingent rewards influenced substantial increases in belt wearing, and showed that most of the influence occurred after the initial incentive prompt.     

The influence of road familiarity on distracted driving activities and driving operation using naturalistic driving study data

This paper analyzed the influence of familiarity on the involvement of secondary tasks and driving operation using naturalistic driving study (NDS) data. Distracted driving activities were extracted from face videos captured in 557 trips, including 501 trips on familiar roads and 56 trips on unfamiliar roads. These trips were completed by 155 drivers using their own vehicles during daytime hours under good weather conditions. The data showed the frequency of distracted driving activities and duration time were higher on familiar roads compared to unfamiliar roads. More types of secondary tasks were found on familiar roads. Focusing on objects was the most common distracted driving activity on familiar roads. The average time drivers used to eat or drink was highest (8.67 s) on familiar roads. The time drivers spent checking their cell phone was high on both familiar roads and unfamiliar roads. Since driving operation is directly related to crash risk, this paper also analyzed the difference of driving operation on familiar roads and unfamiliar roads. The speed profiles were generated on well-known versus unfamiliar roads. It was shown that drivers were more likely to be speeding and select a short distance to deceleration near the intersections. The findings indicated that distracted driving phenomenon was more serious on familiar roads.     

Reducing young drivers’ crash risk: Are we there yet? An ecological systems-based review of the last decade of research

The involvement of young novice drivers in road crashes and violations has remained a significant transport and public health issue worldwide. Despite extensive evidence that multiple individual, social, and environmental factors contribute to risk while driving, crashes among young novice drivers have decreased only marginally. There is a need to define clear indicators of risk as well as develop effective interventions.The current study reviews the literature on young novice drivers, including empirical studies, systematic reviews, and crash reports published over the past ten years to provide a synthesis of risk and protective factors across multiple domains, from individual characteristics, to social influences, to behavioural and social interventions, to the car and road environment. Adopting an ecological systems perspective, we discuss links between these domains to clarify the strongest indicators of risk for young novice drivers as compared to experienced drivers, and we collate the available evidence on social and environmental factors that can improve young drivers’ behaviour so to reduce the rate of their road crashes.Among the factors discussed, the incomplete maturation of cognitive skills crucial to safe driving (visual scanning, hazard anticipation, handling of in-vehicle distractions) and the higher susceptibility to social influences (especially peers and parents) emerged as the strongest determinants of discrepancies in performance between young novice and experienced drivers. Growing awareness of the complex array of factors intervening synergistically in young drivers’ risk, as well as technological advancements have led to the design of interventions with some level of effectiveness, however, further research and more robust programmes adopting ecological and holistic approaches are needed to fully address the young driver problem.     

Adaptive warning signals adjusted to driver passenger conversation: Impact of system awareness on behavioral adaptations

The study investigated behavioral adaptation caused by warning signals that adaptively support drivers engaged in a passenger conversation. Novel advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) could monitor the driver state to provide warnings adjusted to the driver’s current need for support. While first research indicates positive effects of dynamically adjusting ADAS, the overall safety potential of such adaptive systems remains unclear as little is known about adverse behavioral effects. Occasional inappropriate support due to an incorrect prediction of the current driver state might lead to critical situations when drivers are aware of the adaptive nature of the system and thus rely on the expected system behavior. To better understand behavioral adaptation to dynamically adjusting warnings, 46 participants driving on a test track reacted to two types of warnings (auditory, vibrotactile-auditory) while engaging in driver-passenger conversation or not. In a compensating warning strategy, vibrotactile-auditory warnings were displayed during conversations and auditory warnings in situations without conversation. This strategy was compared to a non-compensating warning strategy in which these assignments were reversed. The impact of behavioral adaptation was measured by considering reactions to simulated failures of these strategies. The role of system awareness for behavioral adaptation was investigated by manipulating awareness of these warning strategies across groups. We found that vibrotactile-auditory warnings reduced the detrimental effects of conversation on reaction times. Crucially, adverse behavioral adaptation was observed whenever an expected vibrotactile-auditory warning was replaced by an auditory warning but this effect was restricted to drivers in the awareness group. The results show that adaptive warning signals optimize the effectiveness of warnings during driver-passenger conversation but adverse behavioral adaptation develops when drivers are aware of the underlying warning strategy. This implies that future adaptive systems are less likely to be associated with behavioral adaptation if the adaptive nature of the system remains unnoticeable to the driver. Our findings could be used for developing and optimizing user-centered ADAS.     

Attention during visual secondary tasks in driving: Adaptation to the demands of the driving task

Visual attention in driving with visual secondary task is compared for two visual secondary tasks. N = 40 subjects completed a 1 h test drive in a motion-base driving simulator. During the drive, participants either solved an externally paced, highly demanding visual task or a self paced menu system task. The secondary tasks were offered in defined critical and non-critical driving situations. Eye movement behavior was analyzed and compared for both tasks. Before starting the secondary tasks, eye movement behavior shows a smaller standard deviation of gaze as well as longer fixation durations for both tasks. The comparison between the two tasks indicates that drivers use the possibilities the self paced task offers: during the secondary task, they monitor the driving scene with longer fixations and show a greater standard deviation of gaze position. Furthermore, independently of the type of secondary task, drivers adapt their eye movement behavior to the demands of the situation. In critical driving situations they direct a larger proportion of glance time to the driving task. Last, the relation between glance behavior and collisions is analyzed. Results indicate that collisions go together with an inadequate distribution of attention during distraction. The results are interpreted regarding the attentional processes involved in driving with visual secondary tasks. Based on the similarities and differences between the two secondary tasks, a cognitive approach is developed which assumes that the control of attention during distraction is based on a mental situational model of the driving situation.     

Self-relevance increases the irrelevant sound effect: Attentional disruption by one's own name

Memory performance is severely disrupted when task-irrelevant sound is played during item presentation or in a retention interval. Working memory models make contrasting assumptions on whether the semantic content of the auditory distractors modulates the irrelevant sound effect. In the present study, participants made more errors in serial recall when they had to ignore sentences containing their own name as opposed to that of a yoked-control partner. These results are only consistent with working memory models that allow for attentional processes to play a role in the explanation of the irrelevant sound effect. With repeated presentation the disruptive effect of one's own name decreased, whereas the disruptive effect of the auditory distractors in the control condition remained constant. The latter finding is most consistent with the duplex model of auditory attention, which assumes that the irrelevant sound effect is primarily caused by automatic interference of acoustic distractor features, but at the same time allows for a disruption of encoding due to attentional capture by unexpected deviants. However, to explain the present results, the mechanism responsible for the attentional capture has to be extended to highly (self-)relevant auditory distractors.