Driving next to automated vehicle platoons: How do short time headways influence non-platoon drivers’ longitudinal control?

Advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) are taking over an increasing part of the driving task and are supporting the introduction of semi- and fully automated vehicles. As a consequence, a mixed traffic situation is developing where vehicles equipped with automated systems taking over the lateral and longitudinal control of the vehicle will interact with unequipped vehicles (UV) that are not fitted with such automated systems. Different forms of automation are emerging and it appears that regardless of which form is going to become popular on our roads, there is a consensus developing that it will be accompanied by a reduction in time headway (THW). The present simulator study examined whether a ‘contagion’ effect from the short THW held in platoons on the UV drivers would occur. Thirty participants were asked to follow a lead vehicle (LV) on a simulated motorway in three different traffic conditions: surrounding traffic including (1) platoons with short following distance (THW = 0.3 s), (2) large following distance (THW = 1.4 s) or (3) no platoons at all. Participants adapted their driving behaviour by displaying a significant shorter average and minimum THW while driving next to a platoon holding short THWs as when THW was large. They also spent more time keeping a THW below a safety threshold of 1 s. There was no carryover effect from one platoon condition to the other, which can be interpreted as an effect that is not lasting in time. The results of this study point out the importance of examining possibly negative behavioural effects of mixed traffic on UV drivers.     

Action orientation overcomes the ego depletion effect

It has been consistently demonstrated that initial exertion of self‐control had negative influence on people's performance on subsequent self‐control tasks. This phenomenon is referred to as the ego depletion effect. Based on action control theory, the current research investigated whether the ego depletion effect could be moderated by individuals' action versus state orientation. Our results showed that only state‐oriented individuals exhibited ego depletion. For individuals with action orientation, however, their performance was not influenced by initial exertion of self‐control. The beneficial effect of action orientation against ego depletion in our experiment results from its facilitation for adapting to the depleting task.     

Procedural learning,consolidation, and transfer of a new skill in Developmental Coordination Disorder

The aim of this study was to explore the differences in procedural learning abilities between children with DCD and typically developing children by investigating the steps that lead to skill automatization (i.e., the stages of fast learning, consolidation, and slow learning). Transfer of the skill to a new situation was also assessed. We tested 34 children aged 6–12 years with and without DCD on a perceptuomotor adaptation task, a form of procedural learning that is thought to involve the cerebellum and the basal ganglia (regions whose impairment has been associated with DCD) but also other brain areas including frontal regions. The results showed similar rates of learning, consolidation, and transfer in DCD and control children. However, the DCD children's performance remained slower than that of controls throughout the procedural task and they reached a lower asymptotic performance level; the difficulties observed at the outset did not diminish with practice.     

‘Meet Me Halfway’ : Socio‐cultural Adaptation and Perceived Contact Willingness of Host Nationals as Predictors of Immigrants' Threat Perceptions

This three‐wave study investigated the interplay between perceived socio‐cultural adaptation and perceived willingness of the majority group to engage in contact, when predicting realistic and symbolic threats perceived by ethnic migrants from Russia to Finland. To sum up our key findings, the less immigrants perceived difficulties in socio‐cultural adaptation soon after migration, the more positive were their later perceptions of the majority group members' contact willingness. Majority's perceived contact willingness was associated with lower levels of perceived realistic threats, and perceived contact willingness and perceived socio‐cultural adaptation were both associated with lower levels of perceived symbolic threats. As regards practical implications of our findings for culturally diverse communities, equal efforts should be made to help newcomers' socio‐cultural adaptation and to support their positive intergroup interactions with majority group members. That way, the beneficial impact of both of these factors on immigrant integration could be maximized. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adaptation transculturelle de tests et échelles de mesure psychologiques : guide pratique basé sur les Recommandations de la Commission Internationale des Tests et les Standards de pratique du testing de l’APA

Thirty years ago, Vallerand (1989) wrote a pioneering article entitled “Toward a methodology for the transcultural validation of psychological questionnaires: Implications for research in the French language”, whose success has never failed, as well as its usefulness. However, considerable progress has been made in the field of test development and test adaptation since the publication of this article, notably with the publications (and their updates) of the ITC Guidelines for Translating and Adapting Tests (2017) by the International Test Commission, and of the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (2014) by the American Educational Research Association (AERA), the American Psychological Association (APA), and the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME). Based on these two key references, the present article aimed to update the procedure proposed by Vallerand. Without claiming to replace these major references, on the contrary, our objective here is to propose a 10-step procedure for adapting tests and psychological measures originally developed for other cultures and/or languages, a sort of framework guiding in step-by-step manner the adaptation of tests and the validation of their scores.     

Repeated usage of a motorway automated driving function: Automation level and behavioural adaption

The user’s perspective on highly automated driving systems is mostly studied during first contact/single usage. However, with repeated usage, acceptance and usage of automated driving systems might change. For advanced driving assistance systems, change with growing system usage is studied as behavioural adaptation. This concept of behavioural adaptation is applied to highly automated driving systems. In a driving simulator study, N = 61 drivers used an automated driving system for motorways during six experimental sessions. The drivers were free to activate / deactivate the function as they liked and to spend driving time on self-chosen side tasks. Automation level was varied as a between-subject factor (L3 vs. L4). Results show a more positive evaluation of the L4 system and behavioural adaptation for both levels over the course of the six sessions. For most aspects, behavioural adaptation is independent of system level (e.g., for system evaluation, distribution of attention). Only for drivers’ reaction to requests to intervene, a strong impact of system level on the occurrence behavioural adaption can be found. The results are discussed with regard to the theory of behavioural adaptation.     

What happens to our representation of identity as familiar faces age? Evidence from priming and identity aftereffects

Matching identity in images of unfamiliar faces is error prone, but we can easily recognize highly variable images of familiar faces – even images taken decades apart. Recent theoretical development based on computational modelling can account for how we recognize extremely variable instances of the same identity. We provide complementary behavioural data by examining older adults’ representation of older celebrities who were also famous when young. In Experiment 1, participants completed a long-lag repetition priming task in which primes and test stimuli were the same age or different ages. In Experiment 2, participants completed an identity after effects task in which the adapting stimulus was an older or young photograph of one celebrity and the test stimulus was a morph between the adapting identity and a different celebrity; the adapting stimulus was the same age as the test stimulus on some trials (e.g., both old) or a different age (e.g., adapter young, test stimulus old). The magnitude of priming and identity after effects were not influenced by whether the prime and adapting stimulus were the same age or different age as the test face. Collectively, our findings suggest that humans have one common mental representation for a familiar face (e.g., Paul McCartney) that incorporates visual changes across decades, rather than multiple age-specific representations. These findings make novel predictions for state-of-the-art algorithms (e.g., Deep Convolutional Neural Networks).     

Can we adapt to highly automated vehicles as passengers? The mediating effect of trust and situational awareness on role adaption moderated by automated driving style

The emergence of highly automated driving technology provides safe and convenient travel while also causing user inadaptation. Therefore, based on human factors engineering, it is necessary to study highly automated vehicles (HAVs) that meet different user needs. Thus, this study aims to investigate the relationships between state anxiety, situational awareness, trust, and role adaptation. The adaptation model is constructed to conduct a study on the adaptation of HAVs with different automated styles when user roles change from driver to passenger. Simulated riding was conducted in the HAV experiment (N = 117), collecting scale data after each participant had experienced each automated driving style. A structural equation modeling approach was applied to analyze the adaptation model based on scale data. The results showed that there was a significant correlation between state anxiety, situational awareness, trust, and role adaptation. State anxiety has a significant negative predictive effect on trust, situational awareness, and role adaptation. In addition to its direct impact on role adaptation, state anxiety also has an indirect effect on role adaptation through situational awareness and trust. Furthermore, the automated driving style has been confirmed to have a moderating role in the relationship between the direct and indirect effects of state anxiety and role adaptation. Our findings contribute to multiple streams of the literature and have important implications for designing personalized automated driving to improve user acceptance.     

Computational modeling of organisational learning by self-modeling networks

Within organisational learning literature, mental models are considered a vehicle for both individual learning and organizational learning. By learning individual mental models (and making them explicit), a basis for formation of shared mental models for the level of the organization is created, which after its formation can then be adopted by individuals. This provides mechanisms for organizational learning. These mechanisms have been used as a basis for an adaptive computational network model. The model is illustrated by a not too complex but realistic case study.