729 research outputs found
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Driver Fitness in Patients with Cognitive Impairment and Glaucoma
No full textRecent evidence suggests a relationship between cognitive impairment and glaucoma. Whether impaired visual perception in glaucoma contributes to reduced cognitive function in patients with dementia, or cognitive impairment further limits visual perception due to optic nerve damage in glaucoma is unclear. One objective of this study was to see if there were significant differences on measures of perceptual, cognitive and driving performance between older drivers with cognitive impairment and/or glaucoma who still had good visual acuity. A second goal was to measure the strength of association between measures of visual, cognitive, and driving performance. 302 older drivers were classified as having glaucoma alone (n=69), cognitive impairment alone (n=41), both (n=21) or neither (n=171). All participants had good visual acuity, a valid drivers license and were still driving. Demographic, health status, driving accidents and clinical tests of vision and driving performance variables were analyzed using one-way ANOVAS and Pearson correlations. Across demographic, clinical and driving measures there were significant differences between those with cognitive impairment, with or without glaucoma, and controls. Subjects with glaucoma showed significant differences with controls on accidents, driving simulation tests of divided attention and car following delay. Driving simulator and UFOV measures were significantly correlated with self reported accidents. Driving simulation is a valid way to evaluate task performance and may be a more sensitive and salient method of detecting the additive and/or interactive effects of glaucoma and cognitive impairment in older drivers than vision and neuropsychological tests alone
Investigating HUDs for the Presentation of Choice Lists in Car Navigation Systems
No full textIt has been established that head-down displays (HDDs), such as those commonly placed in the dashboard of commercial automobiles, can draw drivers’ attention away from the primary driving task (Bach et al., 2008). This problem can be exacerbated when screens are “busy” with graphics or rich information. In this paper, we present the results of a driving simulator-based user study where we examined two potential alternatives to HDDs for presenting textual lists. Subjects conducted a series of street name finding tasks using each of three system variants: one with a HDD, one with a head-up display (HUD), and one with only an auditory display. We found that the auditory display had the least impact on mental load, but at the expense of task completion efficiency. The HUD variant also had a low impact on mental load and scored highest in user satisfaction, and therefore appears to be the most viable target for future study
Making Auditory Warning Signals Informative: Examining the Acceptance of Auditory Icons as Warning Signals in Trucks
No full textAuditory icons have the potential to enhance a driver’s situation awareness, to reduce his or her visual load, and to improve his or her response time in an emergency situation. However, the level of acceptance of this type of auditory signal as a warning signal is not well understood. The present study was carried out to investigate truck drivers’ initial acceptances of auditory icons as warnings. The drivers selected warning signals for a number of dangerous driving situations. A method that was based on subjective ratings was also used to assess the drivers’ acceptances of the sounds and to gain a better understanding of the factors that influence the drivers’ selections. The results showed that the level of acceptance can be very high, but it varied significantly among the auditory icons that were encountered in five driving situations. Perceived “usefulness” and “satisfaction” may be used to determine whether the drivers prefer an auditory icon in specific situations. However, the subjective ratings related to the satisfaction should be complemented with a deeper qualitative investigation when examining the acceptance of auditory icons as warnings
Developing a North American Static Hazard Perception Test
No full textWe examined the ability of young novice (M = .19 yrs experience) and experienced drivers (M = 5.1 yrs experience) to identify and localize frequently encountered roadway hazards using static images taken in western Canada. Dependent measures also included subjective ratings of hazard risk and scene clutter. Novice drivers reacted to roadway hazards more slowly while rating them as being less hazardous than young, experienced drivers. Using a small subset of scenes, it was determined that a brief hazard perception test employing static images could classify individuals with high accuracy (78%) and good reliability (Cronbach's alpha = .91)
Effectiveness of an Intersection Violation Warning System
No full textPeople age 65 years and older are the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population and the fastest growing sector of the driving population. When compared to other age groups, older drivers are overrepresented in intersection crashes (Subramanian & Lombardo, 2007; Braitman et al., 2006), and approximately half of the charges in fatal intersection crashes are for failure to obey the traffic control device. This project explored an in-vehicle warning system for failure-to-obey (running a stop sign or stop light) violations. Participants who were not using the system made nearly three times as many didnot-stop errors (27%) than participants who were using the system (10%). This effect was most pronounced in older drivers with more risk factors associated with crashes; however, the effect of age group was not statistically significant
Eye Movement Patterns and Driving Performance
No full textIn the current study we examined the relationship between drivers’ eye movement patterns and driving performance in a dual-task driving paradigm. Drivers performed two tasks in a driving simulator. In a car following task, drivers were asked to maintain a constant headway from a leading vehicle as it varied its speed. In the second task (light detection task), drivers tried to detect changes in peripheral traffic lights. The performance in the car following task was measured with headway distance and RMS, and the performance in the light detection task was measured with response time and accuracy. We found that the frequency of fixations, fixation duration and spatial distribution of fixations were significantly correlated with drivers’ performance in the driving tasks. Specifically, driving performance improved with fewer eye movements, longer fixation durations and smaller spatial distribution of fixations
Aging and Steering Control Under Reduced Visibility Conditions
No full textThe current study investigated age-related differences in a steering control task under low visibility conditions. Younger and older drivers were presented with displays simulating forward vehicle motion through a 3D scene of random dots on a ground plane. The lateral position of the vehicle was perturbed by a simulated side wind gust according to a sum of sinusoidal functions. The drivers’ task was to steer the vehicle to maintain a straight path. The visibility of the driving scene was reduced by reducing the quantity and the quality of the optical flow field. We found that performance decreased when visibility was reduced for both older and younger drivers, with better performance for younger drivers as compared with older drivers. An age-related interaction was also found with deteriorated optical flow information. These results suggest that under reduced visibility conditions, older drivers may have increased accident risk due to decreased ability to successfully steer the vehicle
Driving by the Seat of Your Pants! A Multisensory Approach to Capturing Driver Attention
No full textThe increasing availability of complex in-vehicle technologies means that ‘driver inattention’ constitutes one of the leading causes of car accidents. The question therefore arises as to how best to alert ‘distracted’ drivers to potential road dangers. The latest laboratory and simulatorbased studies from the Crossmodal Research Laboratory in Oxford detailing a novel brain-based approach to the design of auditory, tactile, and multisensory warnings signals. The talk will highlight research demonstrating the potential for improving driver behavior in potentially dangerous situations and so reducing the incidence of road traffic crashes that such multisensory warning signals offer. Results of recent studies showing that multisensory stimuli can capture the attention of the driver in the simulator (and the average participant in the psychology laboratory) far more effectively than unisensory stimuli will also be described. The importance of spatial colocation in multisensory warning signal design will also be discussed, as will new evidence regarding the potentially beneficial effects of presenting warning signals in near-rear peripersonal space (i.e., from the headrest) on drivers’ head-turning responses
Effects of Concurrent Continuous Visual Feedback on Learning the Lane Keeping Task
No full textThis study investigated the training effectiveness of continuous visual feedback in a simulator-based lane keeping task. Two groups of student drivers (total of 30 participants) were instructed to drive as accurately as possible in the center of the right lane in a self-paced driving task during five 8-min sessions. One group received visual feedback using a horizontal compensatory display positioned on the dashboard, which provided an indication of the momentary distance to the lane center during the three training sessions. During two retention sessions (immediate and one day delayed) both groups drove without the augmented feedback. The augmented feedback resulted in improved performance on a measure lane keeping accuracy, but this effect disappeared during retention. Furthermore, the augmented feedback resulted in increased steering wheel activity during all sessions, and increased driver workload in the delayed retention session. These results provide support for the guidance hypothesis and have possible implications for the use of continuous concurrent feedback in simulatorbased driver training
Evaluating Changes in the Driving Behavior of Young Drivers a Few Years After Licensure Using In-Vehicle Data Recorders
No full textThis paper aims to evaluate how young drivers drive a few years after licensure. Driving behavior in the fourth year of driving is compared to that of the first year, based on data from In-Vehicle Data Recorders (IVDR). Young drivers' cars were equipped with the same IVDR systems in both study periods. The comparison revealed that, in general, driving patterns did not change significantly. The difference in risky behaviour between weekdays and weekends was more prominent in the fourth year than in the first year. In addition, an interesting improvement occurred at the end of the fourth-year study period. The analysis results obtained should also be considered an example of the potential of what may be done with this kind of data