JOE
06-30-2003, 09:03 PM
New York Times
July 1, 2003
A Test of Paying Attention Behind the Wheel
By JOHN O'NEIL
Listening while driving seems to be safe, even if the listening is
absorbing much of the driver's attention. But talking while driving,
it seems, is a different matter.
A new study, released on Sunday, measured what happened when drivers
were sent out into traffic and given a variety of mental tasks to
perform. The researchers found that internal distractions - that is,
what was going on inside the driver's head - could impair visual
skills while driving as much as external distractions, like a baby
crying in the back seat. But they also found big differences in the
amount of interference caused by different kinds of mental activities.
The study, published in The Journal of Experimental Psychology:
Applied, was conducted by researchers at the Public Administration for
Traffic Safety of Spain and the Complutense University in Madrid.
Twelve young adults with good driving records were sent on a four-hour
highway trip in a Citroën fitted with a camera that tracked their eye
movements to gauge how much attention they were paying to how much of
the visual field. The dashboard was also equipped with lights that
would turn on periodically; the drivers could turn them off by
pressing buttons near the steering wheel.
The researchers divided the mental tasks into two categories:
receptive, meaning passively absorbing information, and productive, in
which the drivers were asked to give answers to defined requests. The
drivers' performance in between these tasks was measured for purposes
of comparison.
For the receptive tasks, the drivers listened to two-minute taped
messages and were told to pay close attention, as they would be asked
about them later. Some of the messages related concrete information,
including descriptions of objects, while others concerned more
abstract data, like a narrative. The researchers found that this kind
of intent listening had almost no effect on how closely the drivers
paid attention to the road and the dashboard.
But when the drivers were asked to talk about what they had heard,
their ability to pay attention dropped by as much as a third. Even
relatively simple production tasks, like relating where they were and
what they were doing, had about as big an effect as requests that the
researchers considered more complicated.
The study found that the distraction levels were equally high when the
driver was talking to a passenger or into a hands-free cellphone.
One of the researchers, Dr. Luis M. Nuņes of the traffic agency, said
the findings should not be seen as an endorsement of using hands-free
phones while driving. For one thing, he noted, most conversations
involve talking as well as listening. For another, he said, the use of
cellphones of any kind involves movements that are less likely to be
automatic than features that have long been designed for easy access
in cars, like turning on radios.
An earlier study by the same researchers found that visual tasks
produced high levels of distraction for drivers. Putting the two
together suggests that a high-risk activity may be trying to remember
the landmark that tells you where to exit for a particular restaurant
while telling someone what you had the last time you ate there.
July 1, 2003
A Test of Paying Attention Behind the Wheel
By JOHN O'NEIL
Listening while driving seems to be safe, even if the listening is
absorbing much of the driver's attention. But talking while driving,
it seems, is a different matter.
A new study, released on Sunday, measured what happened when drivers
were sent out into traffic and given a variety of mental tasks to
perform. The researchers found that internal distractions - that is,
what was going on inside the driver's head - could impair visual
skills while driving as much as external distractions, like a baby
crying in the back seat. But they also found big differences in the
amount of interference caused by different kinds of mental activities.
The study, published in The Journal of Experimental Psychology:
Applied, was conducted by researchers at the Public Administration for
Traffic Safety of Spain and the Complutense University in Madrid.
Twelve young adults with good driving records were sent on a four-hour
highway trip in a Citroën fitted with a camera that tracked their eye
movements to gauge how much attention they were paying to how much of
the visual field. The dashboard was also equipped with lights that
would turn on periodically; the drivers could turn them off by
pressing buttons near the steering wheel.
The researchers divided the mental tasks into two categories:
receptive, meaning passively absorbing information, and productive, in
which the drivers were asked to give answers to defined requests. The
drivers' performance in between these tasks was measured for purposes
of comparison.
For the receptive tasks, the drivers listened to two-minute taped
messages and were told to pay close attention, as they would be asked
about them later. Some of the messages related concrete information,
including descriptions of objects, while others concerned more
abstract data, like a narrative. The researchers found that this kind
of intent listening had almost no effect on how closely the drivers
paid attention to the road and the dashboard.
But when the drivers were asked to talk about what they had heard,
their ability to pay attention dropped by as much as a third. Even
relatively simple production tasks, like relating where they were and
what they were doing, had about as big an effect as requests that the
researchers considered more complicated.
The study found that the distraction levels were equally high when the
driver was talking to a passenger or into a hands-free cellphone.
One of the researchers, Dr. Luis M. Nuņes of the traffic agency, said
the findings should not be seen as an endorsement of using hands-free
phones while driving. For one thing, he noted, most conversations
involve talking as well as listening. For another, he said, the use of
cellphones of any kind involves movements that are less likely to be
automatic than features that have long been designed for easy access
in cars, like turning on radios.
An earlier study by the same researchers found that visual tasks
produced high levels of distraction for drivers. Putting the two
together suggests that a high-risk activity may be trying to remember
the landmark that tells you where to exit for a particular restaurant
while telling someone what you had the last time you ate there.
