Missing links? The effects of distraction on driver situation awareness

Achieving situation awareness is critical to safe and efficient driving. One factor that can limit drivers’ situation awareness and thereby affect driving performance is distraction. This study aimed to investigate, under real-world driving conditions, whether and how visual–manual distraction disrupts drivers’ situation awareness. Twenty-three participants drove an instrumented vehicle around an urban test route while distracted (i.e., performing a visual detection task) and while not distracted. A network analysis procedure, based on verbal protocols provided by drivers en-route, was used to describe and analyse participants’ situation awareness. The findings indicate that engaging in a visually distracting task did not alter the structure of drivers’ SA, but did change the content of their awareness. When distracted, drivers tended to place less emphasis on visual scanning element in favour of focussing on elements related to vehicle control tasks. These results have implications for the design and regulation of technologies being introduced into vehicles.

► Achieving situation awareness is critical to safe and efficient driving.
► One factor that can limit driver situation awareness is distraction.
► This study explores how distraction disrupts drivers’ situation awareness.
► Distraction changed the content, but not the structure of drivers’ situation awareness.
► Distracted drivers focus less on visual scanning in favour of vehicle control elements.