Cell Phone Use Diminishes Self-Awareness of the Adverse Effects of Cell Phone Use on Driving

Multitasking may diminish the self-awareness of performance that is often essential for self-regulation and self-knowledge. Participants in an experiment drove on a simulator while talking or not talking on a cell phone. The errors they made while driving were recorded. Following previous research, participants who talked on a cell phone made more serious driving errors than no cell phone participants. No cell phone participants’ assessments of the safeness of their driving and general ability to drive safely while distracted were negatively correlated with the actual number of errors they made driving. Hence, more errors were associated with more negative self-assessments. In contrast, cell phone participants’ assessments of the safeness of their driving and confidence in their driving abilities were uncorrelated with their actual errors. Thus, talking on a cell phone not only diminished the safeness of participants’ driving, it diminished their awareness of the safeness of their driving.

• Record URL:
  https://www.ugpti.org/resources/reports/details.php?id=868
• 
• Record URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/32198
• Supplemental Notes:
  • This document was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation, University Transportation Centers Program.
• Corporate Authors:

  University of Utah, Salt Lake City

  Salt Lake City, UT  United States 

  Mountain-Plains Consortium

  North Dakota State University
  Fargo, ND  United States  58108

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Authors:
  • Sanbonmatsu, David M
  • Strayer, David L
  • Biondi, Francesco
  • Behrends, Arwen A
  • Moore, Shannon M
• Publication Date: 2017-3

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: References; Tables;
• Pagination: 19p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Awareness; Cellular telephones; Distraction; Driver errors; Driver performance; Drivers; Driving simulators; Highway safety; Multitasking
• Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01634747
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: MPC 17-322
• Files: UTC, NTL, TRIS, ATRI, USDOT
• Created Date: May 16 2017 9:30AM