Drivers’ Reaction Time and Mental Workload: A Driving Simulation Study

IF 1.1 Q3 TRANSPORTATION SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Anna Pouliou, F. Kehagia, Georgios Poulios, M. Pitsiava-Latinopoulou, E. Bekiaris
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Abstract Drivers play a significant role in causing serious accidents, which underscores the need for further investigating the human element in order to improve road safety. Given the predominance of the information processing approach in driver’s behavior research field, an important psychological construct, Mental Workload (MWL), has been introduced to study the behavior of drivers. The objective of this paper is to investigate the impact of increased MWL on driver behavior and specifically the changes in driver’s Reaction Time (RT) under increased MWL. The experiment conducted in the driving simulator of the Hellenic Institute of Transport which is part of the Centre for Research and Technology Hellas, with the participation of 56 subjects from all age groups. For the simulation of the increased MWL conditions during driving, a secondary task was employed. To this end, the MIT AgeLab Delayed Digit Recall Task in the 1-back version was adapted for the needs of the present research. The driving scenario included 4 unexpected events, which further increase driver’s MWL. Driving performance was observed and relative parameters were measured as RT on the unexpected events, accidents occurred, and maneuvers performed. Appropriate statistical analysis was performed to examine the difference in the drivers’ RT in the unexpected events. Results demonstrated that higher MWL increased drivers’ RT in the majority of the participants. Furthermore, results also indicated a number of participants that probably employed adaptive control behaviors to counterbalance the increased MWL. Overall, variance on MWL proved to play an important role on driver performance, and thus further research on its consequences on driving performance, and the factors that influence its variance during driving, is imperative.
驾驶员的反应时间和心理负荷:模拟驾驶研究
摘要 驾驶员在造成严重交通事故中扮演着重要角色,这就强调了进一步研究人的因素以改善道路安全的必要性。鉴于信息处理方法在驾驶员行为研究领域的主导地位,人们引入了一个重要的心理学概念--心理工作量(MWL)来研究驾驶员的行为。本文旨在研究 MWL 增加对驾驶员行为的影响,特别是 MWL 增加时驾驶员反应时间(RT)的变化。实验在希腊研究与技术中心下属的希腊交通研究所的驾驶模拟器上进行,共有 56 名来自各个年龄段的受试者参加。为了模拟驾驶过程中增加的最大载重量,采用了一项辅助任务。为此,我们对麻省理工学院 AgeLab 1-back 版本的延迟数字回忆任务进行了改编,以满足本次研究的需要。驾驶场景包括 4 个意外事件,这进一步增加了驾驶员的最大工作负荷。研究人员对驾驶表现进行了观察,并测量了意外事件的RT、发生的事故和完成的操作等相对参数。通过适当的统计分析,考察了驾驶员在突发事件中的 RT 差异。结果表明,在大多数参与者中,MWL越高,驾驶员的RT越高。此外,结果还表明,一些参与者可能采用了适应性控制行为来抵消增加的最大允许通过量。总之,MWL 的变化被证明对驾驶员的表现起着重要作用,因此,进一步研究其对驾驶表现的影响以及在驾驶过程中影响其变化的因素势在必行。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
Transport and Telecommunication Journal
Transport and Telecommunication Journal TRANSPORTATION SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY-
CiteScore
3.00
自引率
0.00%
发文量
21
审稿时长
35 weeks
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