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The relationship of age and cognitive characteristics of drivers to performance of driving tasks on an interactive driving simulator

Professor: LiuStudent: Ruby

Objective

• To know why age and specific cognitive and perceptual characteristics of drivers to their performance of driving tasks on an interactive driving simulator.

References

• The accident of older drivers was including:• Failure to follow traffic signs and signals.• Improperly passing intersections.• Making improper turns (left turns).• Inaccurate lane changes.• Careless backing.• Driving the wrong way on one-way streets.

McKnight, 1988; Yaksich, 1985; Waller, 1967

Methods

• Participants:• 95 people.

• Age from 18 to 81 years old.

• Questionnaire. Driving experience. Accidents in the last five years. Time of day car is used.

Methods

• The cognitive skills included:• Information processing speeds• Attention• Memory• Visuoconstructive / visuospatial• Abstraction

Methods

• Information processing speeds• Posner letter matching task

Recalling highly overlearned name codes from long-term memory.

• Sternberg short-term memory search task Scan information in immediate memory.

• Figural visual scanning and discrimination task Scan five figures to identify the one figure.

• Two-choice visual reaction time task Psychomotor response spped.

Methods

• Attention • Digit span

Memory and attention.• Continuous paired associates task

Memory and attentional resources.• Variable interstimulus

Alertness.

Methods

• Abstraction• Trial making test A & B (TMTA and TMTB)

Visuoconceptual and visuomotor tracking. (involves motor speed and attention).

• Digit symbol substitution (WAIS-R)• Visuoperceptual and motor processes.

Results

• Older persons were less likely to have been involved in an accident than younger persons. (r=-.27, p=.008)

• Total have 95 subjects, but only 64 subjects completed all aspects of the simulator driving.

Results

• Relationship of age to cognitive characteristics• Age of the cognitive characteristics mentioned

above showed significantly poorer performance on all the variables, except three:

Digit span Number of errors on trial making tasks A & B.

Results

• Relationship of age and cognitive characteristics of drivers to driving performance.• Collisions

Collisions ere significantly related to poor lane keeping (r=.33, p=.004) and going over the median (r=.40, p=.001) .

A multiple regression analysis showed going over the median to be the best predictor of collisions. (Beta=.40, p=.009)

Results

• Relationship of age and cognitive characteristics of drivers to driving performance.• Lane keeping

Poor performance on the lane keeping task was related to slower speed on the TMTB task (r=.39, p=.001) and increasing age (r=-.31, p=.006)

Results

• Relationship of age and cognitive characteristics of drivers to driving performance.• Number of times off median

Speed on the two choice reaction time task was significantly related to the number of times the subject went over the median on straight roads. (r=.35, p=.002)

The slower the reaction time on the two choice task, the more often the subjects went over the meidan.

Results

• Relationship of age and cognitive characteristics of drivers to driving performance.

Results

• Relationship of age and cognitive characteristics of drivers to driving performance.• The number of times the subjects went off the

road increased significantly in relation poor far visual acuity (r=.58, p<.0001). Slow speed on the two choice reaction time

(r=.41, p=.001). Lower speed on the TMTA (r=.57, p<.0001). Errors on the TMTB (r=.50, p<.0001). Slow speed on the TMTB task (r=.65, p<.0001).

Results

• Relationship of age and cognitive characteristics of drivers to driving performance.• Reaction to a vehicle’s sudden action

A significant relationship was found between performance on the variable interstimulus task and stopping at the appearance of the van (r=-.64, p<.0001).

Results

• Relationship of age and cognitive characteristics of drivers to driving performance.• Reaction to a stop light

The score on the digit span backward was significant (r=.42, p<.0001).

• Reaction to stop sign No significant was found in here.

Results

• Relationship of age and cognitive characteristics of drivers to driving performance.• Knowledge of traffic signs

Age was significant to the number of traffic signs identified (r=-.46, p<.0001).

The free recall score on the California verbal learning test was significant related to the number of traffic signs (r=.42, p<.0001)

Results

• Relationship of age and cognitive characteristics of drivers to driving performance.• Left turn performance

51 subjects completed the left turn and without collision.

The subject waited before turning increased significantly in relation to the:

Age (r=.43, p=.002) Poor near visual acuity (r=.42, p=.002) Slow reaction time(r=.43, p=.003)

Discussion

• None of the cognitive characteristics of drivers were related to collisions. • They were related to driving tasks and driving ou

tcomes.• Age sensitive cognitive and perceptual ch

aracteristics of drivers in the performance of driving tasks and important of distinct cognitive characteristics to particular tasks.