A Driving Simulation Study for the Effects of Divided-Attention on Driving Performance: Comparison of Young and Old Drivers

To investigate the effect of divided attention on driving behavior, the present study performed a driving simulation with different age group. The subjects were asked to drive the driving simulator as their normal driving when their attention was systematically distracted by different sensory modality (visual vs. auditory) and distraction level (simple vs. complex). Free recall performance was also measured to investigate the drivers ability to process information under the task requirement. The results showed the following results: First, when the every distraction conditions (visual-complex, visual-simple, auditory-complex, and auditory-simple) were compared with the no-distraction condition, the driving performance for both age group generally decreased when the any kinds of distracter were presented. Second, the age effect was significant in the most driving performance measures. Third, the distraction of visual modality or the complex distracters generally produced more larger driving performance impairment than the auditory or simple distraction condition. Fourth, the complexity of distracter was more important factor in free recall task than modality factor for both age group. Finally, the results are discussed in terms of strength, limitation, and implication of the present study.