Cognitive Distraction: Something to Think About: Lessons Learned from Recent Studies
Distracted driving comes from three sources: visual (eyes off the road), manual (hands off the wheel), and cognitive (mind off the task). Of these, cognitive distraction is the most difficult to observe and measure. This report reviews the literature on distracted driving and introduces a landmark study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety and the University of Utah of mental workload imposed on drivers by the performance of a variety of common secondary tasks: listening to the radio, listening to an audio book, conversing with a passenger, conversing on a hand-held cell phone, conversing on a hands-free cell phone, and interacting with an advanced speech-to-text system similar to those that are increasingly found in new vehicles. In addition to isolating the cognitive elements in each distracting task, this study uses advanced metrics (such as brainwave measurements, reaction time tests, and other indicators) to create a rating scale that assesses how mentally distracting each task is relative to two extremes: non-distracted driving, and driving while performing a complex math and verbal activity. The main finding of this study is that driver use of in-vehicle speech-to-text technologies is the most distracting of the six tasks.
- Record URL:
- Summary URL:
-
Corporate Authors:
AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety
607 14th Street, NW, Suite 201
Washington, DC 20005 -
Authors:
- Hamilton, Bruce
- Grabowski, Jurek
- Publication Date: 2013-6
Language
- English
Media Info
- Media Type: Digital/other
- Features: References;
- Pagination: 15p
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Cognition; Distraction; Drivers; Highway safety; Lessons learned
- Uncontrolled Terms: In-vehicle technologies; Mental workload; Secondary tasks
- Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors; I83: Accidents and the Human Factor;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01484415
- Record Type: Publication
- Files: TRIS
- Created Date: Jun 19 2013 12:28PM