Citation

Recarte MA, Nunes LM. J. Exp. Psychol. Appl. 2000; 6(1): 31-43.

Affiliation

Department of Basic Processes, Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain. psbas05@sis.ucm.es

Copyright

(Copyright © 2000, American Psychological Association)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

10937310

Abstract

The consequences of performing verbal and spatial-imagery tasks on visual search when driving were studied. Twelve participants drove 84 km on 2 highways and 2 roads. On each route, they performed 2 verbal tasks and 2 spatial-imagery tasks while their eye movements were recorded. The same results were repeated on all routes. Pupillary dilation indicated similar effort for each task. Visual functional-field size decreased horizontally and vertically, particularly for spatial-imagery tasks. Compared with ordinary driving, fixations were longer during the spatial-imagery task. With regard to driving performance, glance frequency at mirrors and speedometer decreased during the spatial-imagery task. Results are interpreted in terms of multiple attention-resource theories; implications of internal distractions on road safety are discussed in terms of possible impairment in relevant information processing.


Keywords: Driver distraction

Language: en