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Mind wandering is a pervasive threat to transportation safety, potentially accounting for a substantial number of crashes and fatalities. In the current study, mind wandering was induced through completion of the same task for 5 days, consisting of a 20-min monotonous freeway-driving scenario, a cognitive depletion task, and a repetition of the 20-min driving scenario driven in the reverse direction. Participants were periodically probed with auditory tones to self-report whether they were mind wandering or focused on the driving task. Self-reported mind wandering frequency was high, and did not statistically change over days of participation. For measures of driving performance, participant labeled periods of mind wandering were associated with reduced speed and reduced lane variability, in comparison to periods of on task performance. For measures of electrophysiology, periods of mind wandering were associated with increased power in the alpha band of the electroencephalogram (EEG), as well as a reduction in the magnitude of the P3a component of the event related potential (ERP) in response to the auditory probe. Results support that mind wandering has an impact on driving performance and the associated change in driver’s attentional state is detectable in underlying brain physiology. Further, results suggest that detecting the internal cognitive state of humans is possible in a continuous task such as automobile driving. Identifying periods of likely mind wandering could serve as a useful research tool for assessment of driver attention, and could potentially lead to future in-vehicle safety countermeasures.

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Assessing SOD and associated WM resources have implications for targeted training for navigation in VEs and for the design of in-vehicle navigation systems.

The role of sensory acuity, processing speed, and working memory capacity on auditory working memory span (L-span) performance at five presentation levels was examined in 80 young (18-30 y) and 26 older adults (60-82 y). Lowering the presentation level of the L-span task had a greater detrimental effect on older adults than in the young. Furthermore, the relationship between sensory acuity and L-span performance varied as a function of age and presentation level. These results suggest that declining acuity plays an important explanatory role in age-related declines in cognitive abilities.Keywords auditory acuity; working memory; listening span; cognitive aging; perceptual processing; hearing Age-related declines in cognitive skills are typically found for fluid intelligence (see reviews in Salthouse, 2003;Verhaeghen & Salthouse, 1997), prospective memory (Kliegel & Jager, 2006;Kliegel, Jager, & Phillips, 2008), episodic memory (Addis, Wong, & Schacter, 2008;Old & Naveh-Benjamin, 2008), executive processing (Kray, Eber, & Lindenberger, 2004) and dual task performance (Glass et al., 2000;Verhaeghen, Steitz, Sliwinski, & Cerella, 2003). Some researchers have proposed that such age related difficulties reflect impaired cognitive functions such as slowed information processing (Cerella, 1985;Salthouse, 1994) or decreased working memory/attentional capacity (Park et al., 2002;Salthouse, 1992). Others have pointed out, however, that age related declines in sensory acuity may lead to difficulties in performing cognitive tasks, even when visual or auditory stimuli are presented at above-threshold levels such that they can be seen or heard (Baldwin, 2002;Baldwin, 2007;Baldwin & Struckman-Johnson, 2002;Lunner, Rudner, & Ronnberg, 2009; PichoraFuller, Schneider, & Daneman, 1995;Schneider, Daneman, & Murphy, 2005;. Accordingly, mediation of cognitive performance by sensory acuity provides another explanatory framework for age-related cognitive decline (see discussions in Baldwin, 2002;Rabbitt, 1990;Schneider et al., 2005;Schneider & Pichora-Fuller, 2000;Scialfa, 2002 Hearing impairment is pervasive among older adults (Corso, 1963;Gates, Cooper, Kannel, & Miller, 1990). In a recent population based sample of over 2000 adults 73-84 years of age, 59.9% had mid frequency clinical hearing loss (pure-tone thresholds of > 25 dB at 500, 1000, and 2000 Hz) and 76.9% had high frequency hearing loss (Helzner et al., 2005). Subclinical hearing loss among older adults is ubiquitous. Pure-tone thresholds have consistently been found to increase with age (Corso, 1963;Fozard & Gordon-Salant, 2001; Schieber & Baldwin, 1996), particularly across the high frequency range which is critical for distinguishing between consonants (Botwinick, 1984;Humes, 2007;Villaume, Brown, & Darling, 1994).Hearing impairment may impact higher order cognitive processes in several ways. First, it may result in the sensory extraction stage of speech processing requiring greater allocation of limited attentional resources, leaving fewer resources available ...

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Matching the perceived urgency of an alert with the relative hazard level of the situation is critical for effective alarm response. Two experiments describe the impact of acoustic and semantic parameters on ratings of perceived urgency, annoyance and alerting effectiveness and on alarm response speed. Within a simulated driving context, participants rated and responded to collision avoidance system (CAS) messages spoken by a female or male voice (experiments 1 and 2, respectively). Results indicated greater perceived urgency and faster alarm response times as intensity increased from -2 dB signal to noise (S/N) ratio to +10 dB S/N, although annoyance ratings increased as well. CAS semantic content interacted with alarm intensity, indicating that at lower intensity levels participants paid more attention to the semantic content. Results indicate that both acoustic and semantic parameters independently and interactively impact CAS alert perceptions in divided attention conditions and this work can inform auditory alarm design for effective hazard matching. Matching the perceived urgency of an alert with the relative hazard level of the situation is critical for effective alarm response. Here, both acoustic and semantic parameters independently and interactively impacted CAS alert perceptions in divided attention conditions. This work can inform auditory alarm design for effective hazard matching. STATEMENT OF RELEVANCE: Results indicate that both acoustic parameters and semantic content can be used to design collision warnings with a range of urgency levels. Further, these results indicate that verbal warnings tailored to a specific hazard situation may improve hazard-matching capabilities without substantial trade-offs in perceived annoyance.