The Role of Situation Criticality in Affecting the Effect of Cognitive Load on Drivers’ Brake responses: A Driving Simulator Based Study

Abstract

A dramatic increase in talking on the phone whilst driving has been seen over the past decades, which posed a significant safety threat on the whole society consequently. Studies on the topic regarding the effect of phone conversations on drivers’ driving performances have never come to a cease, especially on the studies of drivers’ brake response times. However, few studies focus on the relationship between situation criticality and the effect of cognitive load on drivers’ brake responses. To better understand it, a driving simulator experiment with two braking scenarios corresponding to two levels of situation criticality was conducted in this study. Participants were asked to follow a lead vehicle as they normally did and answer arithmetic problems (simple and complex) in three phone modes (baseline, hands-free, and handheld) in the meantime. Drivers’ brake response times to the lead vehicle under five conditions were collected and fitted in accumulator models, in which visual looming and brake lights onset were included as the sensory cues. Results demonstrated that the previously proposed mechanistically explicit simulation model was able to predict drivers’ brake response times on different levels of cognitive load and the increased effect of cognitive load on drivers’ brake response times in less critical situations was demonstrated in this paper as well.

Talking on the Phone While Driving: A Literature Review on Driving Simulator Studies

“…While some tasks involved real conversations and everyday topics, such as family, origin, accommodation, traveling [ 103 ], job or school commitments [ 58 ], daily driving habits, driving history, and personal information [ 82 ], in some studies, conversations involving a certain level of emotional involvement [ 129 , 130 ] or the use of the visuospatial ability [ 92 , 131 ] have been used. Tasks involving mathematical operations have been found in a large number of studies (n = 16), either with a simple level of difficulty, such as arithmetic problems [ 112 , 118 , 132 ], or with both simple and complex levels [ 105 , 133 ].…”

“…driving simulators: [ 76 , 138 ], and in three studies, the simulator had only one D.O.F. : the driving simulator located at Beijing Jiaotong University [ 101 , 132 , 133 ].…”

Effect of Behavioral Precaution on Braking Operation of Elderly Drivers under Cognitive Workloads

“…However, the characteristic driving behaviors in the simulator that were revealed in the related study may not represent driving behavior in the real world. A related study [ 9 ] reported that cognitive load adversely affected braking operations. The effect of taking behavioral precautions on braking when a cognitive load is applied has not been verified.…”

“…A related study [ 9 ] reported that the drivers’ braking operations slow down when a driver has a cognitive workload. However, this has not been validated for behavioral precautions when braking is impaired by a cognitive workload.…”

“…Driving behavior on the simulator does not always match driving behavior in the real world. In addition, the effect of cognitive decline in elderly drivers regarding braking and behavior precautions under mental stress was not analyzed [ 9 ].…”