The Danger of Incorrect Expectations In Driving: The Failure to Respond

This paper addresses Inattentional Blindness or look-but-fail-to-see in driving. How it is possible that visual information, highly relevant for driving is not perceived or responded to. The author's main focus was on driver expectations. Different experimental studies were performed. In the conducted studies, the author had drivers perform a driving task in which they had to drive a specific road numerous times. This way they were able to control driver expectations with a specific road environment. After some drives the author made some crucial changes to the road environment (e.g., change in priority, change in No-Entry road). Behavioural responses (speed, deceleration) were measured to these changes, as well as eye movements (glance duration) and awareness of the changes. All participants were experienced drivers, and over all studies, 250 drivers participated. There was a relation between driver expectations and the failure to respond. Glance duration to traffic signs was found to decrease with a driver becoming more and more familiar with a specific road. Visually selecting the information seems to be an important condition for enabling a response, but it is certainly not enough. There are various cases where expectations were so strong that drivers looked at the information but did not respond. There seems to be a high correlation between glance duration and responding, as well as between the type of change and responding. In-vehicle equipment warning the driver for these types of situations is highly effective. An elaborated task performance model is presented.

• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/isbn/9780874141580
• Corporate Authors:

  University of Iowa, Iowa City

  Public Policy Center
  227 South Quadrangle
  Iowa City, IA  United States  52242-1192
• Authors:
  • Martens, Marieke H
• Conference:
  • Driving Assessment 2007: 4th International Driving Symposium on Human Factors in Driver Assessment, Training, and Vehicle Design
  • Location: Stevenson Washington, United States
  • Date: 2007-7-9 to 2007-7-12
• Publication Date: 2007

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: CD-ROM
• Features: Figures; References;
• Pagination: pp 314-320
• Monograph Title: Proceedings of the 4th International Driving Symposium on Human Factors in Driver Assessment, Training, and Vehicle Design, Stevenson, Washington, July 9-12, 2007

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Attention; Attitudes; Distraction; Drivers; Driving; Hazards; Highway safety; Human information processing; Reaction time
• Uncontrolled Terms: Expectations; Glance duration; Visual information
• Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors; I83: Accidents and the Human Factor;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01055458
• Record Type: Publication
• ISBN: 9780874141580
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Aug 23 2007 1:01PM