Cognitive function and driving: Important for young and old alike

Spatial Mental Transformation Skills Discriminate Fitness to Drive in Young and Old Adults

“…Results showed that: (i) age negatively affects all driving measures considered in this study; (ii) measures of overall cognitive functioning significantly predicted traffic stress resilience and the ability to manage an overview of the traffic visual scene; (iii) measures of object-based spatial mental transformation significantly predicted the performance in both stress resilience and visual reaction task; (iv) significant effects of self-based spatial skills were found on stress resilience and, in interaction with the gender, on visual acquisition; and (v) the interaction between cognitive and demographic predictors mitigated in a non-significant way the effects of these predictors only on measures of stress resilience and speed reaction but not on measures of motor speed and visual acquisition. The background research approaching individual differences in driving performance demonstrated that aging affects driving skills due to decline in sensory, cognitive, and motor functioning (e.g., Matthews et al, 1999;Mathias and Lucas, 2009;Fraade-Blanar et al, 2018;Kunishige et al, 2019;Ledger et al, 2019a). The current study supports previous findings in which gender differences were related to differences in stress vulnerability (Matthews et al, 1999) and in reaction times (Matthews et al, 1999;Der and Deary, 2006;Dykiert et al, 2012).…”

“…It is known that with the increase of age, some medical conditions, such as neurological damage/disease, visual problems, or cognitive impairment, could occur (Ball and Owsley, 1993;Vernon, 1995;Reger et al, 2004;Whelihan et al, 2005;Mathias and Lucas, 2009). However, in a recent study, Ledger et al (2019a) found that measures of cognitive functioning similarly predicted simulated driving performance in young and mature/elderly drivers, concluding that cognitive functioning affected driving performance throughout life. The incomplete maturation of cognitive functions in young-adulthood and the cognitive decline early observed in mature adults and accelerated in the elderly can cause similar quotes of crash rates (Ledger et al, 2019a).…”

“…Several scholars showed that measures of mental status predicted onroad and simulated driving measures (for a review see Anstey et al, 2005). A recent study found comparable findings by using the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and by comparing simulated driving measures and overall cognitive functioning in younger and older drivers (Ledger et al, 2019a). The few studies that have investigated the relationship between MoCA score and driving measures showed inconsistent results.…”

Linking executive functions to distracted driving, does it differ between young and mature drivers?

“…Second, to compare and determine the differences between younger and older drivers, correlation tests between each executive function score and distracted driving behavior were performed. The correlation coefficients were calculated separately for young drivers and mature drivers, then a z-score of the comparisons between age groups was calculated to identify the statistical difference of the correlation coefficients [22]. Finally, to further determine the relative contributions of age, gender, and the five executive functions on distracted driving behaviors, multiple hierarchical regression modeling was carried out using a forward step-wise strategy.…”

“…Another study by Starkey and Isler investigated the role of executive function in explaining driving behavior in adolescent (16-18 years) and adult (25 years and over) male drivers, finding that greater working memory was associated with higher levels of self-reported risky driving and more accepting attitudes to risky driving [21]. Ledger et al explored the relationship between cognitive functions and driving performance in younger and older drivers, obtaining a similar model for cognitive function and driving performance in both population groups [22].…”