The impact of secondary task cognitive processing demand on driving performance

Crash causation research has identified inattention as a major source of driver error leading to crashes. The series of experiments presented herein investigate the characteristics of an in-vehicle information system (IVIS) task that could hinder driving performance due to uncertainty buildup and cognitive capture. Three on-road studies were performed that used instrumented passenger and tractor-trailer vehicles to obtain real-world driving performance data. Participants included young, middle-aged, and older passenger vehicle drivers and middle-aged and older commercial vehicle operators. While driving, they were presented with IVIS tasks with various information densities, decision-making elements, presentation formats, and presentation modalities (visual or auditory). The experiments showed that, for both presentation modalities, the presence of multiple decision-making elements in a task had a substantial negative impact on driving performance of both automobile drivers and truck drivers when compared to conventional tasks or tasks with only one decision-making element. The results from these experiments can be used to improve IVIS designs, allowing for potential IVIS task phenomena such as uncertainty buildup and cognitive capture to be avoided.