Staying Connected on the Road: A Comparison of Different Types of Smart Phone Use in a Driving Simulator

Previous research on smart phone use while driving has primarily focused on phone calls and texting. Drivers are now increasingly using their phone for other activities during driving, in particular social media, which have different cognitive demands. The present study compared the effects of four different smart phone tasks on car-following performance in a driving simulator. Phone tasks were chosen that vary across two factors: interaction medium (text vs image) and task pacing (self-paced vs experimenter-paced) and were as follows: Text messaging with the experimenter (text/other-paced), reading Facebook posts (text/self-paced), exchanging photos with the experimenter via Snapchat (image, experimenter -paced), and viewing updates on Instagram (image, experimenter -paced). Drivers also performed a driving only baseline. Brake reaction times (BRTs) were significantly greater in the text-based conditions (Mean = 1.16 s) as compared to both the image-based conditions (Mean = 0.92 s) and the baseline (0.88 s). There was no significant difference between BRTs in the image-based and baseline conditions and there was no significant effect of task-pacing. Similar results were obtained for Time Headway variability. These results are consistent with the picture superiority effect found in memory research and suggest that image-based interfaces could provide safer ways to 'stay connected' while driving than text-based interfaces.

• Record URL:
  https://doi.org/10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0148555
• Record URL:
  https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0148555
• Supplemental Notes:
  • © 2016 Jaimie McNabb and Rob Gray.
• Authors:
  • McNabb, Jaimie
  • Gray, Rob
• Publication Date: 2016

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Features: Figures; Photos; References;
• Pagination: p e0148555
• Serial:
  • PLoS One
  • Volume: 11
  • Issue Number: 2
  • Publisher: Public Library of Science
  • EISSN: 1932-6203
  • Serial URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/
• Publication flags:

  Open Access (libre)

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Braking performance; Distraction; Driver performance; Driving simulators; Imagery; Mobile applications; Multitasking; Smartphones; Social media; Text messaging
• Uncontrolled Terms: Reactions (Drivers)
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Highways; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01603464
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: May 25 2016 11:59AM