The ability of young, middle-aged and older drivers to inhibit visual and auditory distraction in a driving simulator task
The ability of young, middle-aged and older drivers to inhibit visual and auditory distraction in a driving simulator task
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DOI：
10.1016/j.trf.2019.11.007
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发表时间：
2020-01-01
影响因子：
4.1
通讯作者：
Getzmann, Stephan
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Karthaus, Melanie;Wascher, Edmund;Getzmann, Stephan
驾驶员分心是道路交通事故的主要原因之一。为了避免分心相关的事故，重要的是要抑制无关的刺激和不必要的反应，分心，并专注于驾驶任务，特别是当不可预测的关键事件发生。由于抑制是一种认知功能，它会一直发展到成年早期，并随着年龄的增长而减少，因此年轻和老年驾驶员应该比中年驾驶员更容易分心。使用驾驶模拟，本研究调查的影响，听觉和视觉干扰刺激的关键事件（闪烁的刹车灯前面的一辆车）在年轻，中年和老年司机的反应。任务难度在三种条件下变化，其中干扰物可以被忽略（仅感知），或者需要简单的响应（检测）或复杂的Go-/NoGo-响应（歧视）。反应时间和错误率的关键事件增加时，同时反应的干扰是必需的。这种分心效应在辨别条件下最为明显，在这种条件下，参与者必须对一些分心的刺激做出反应，并抑制对其他刺激的反应。视觉干扰比声音干扰有更强的影响。虽然中年司机即使在困难的任务中也能很好地管理分心物抑制（即，当对干扰刺激的反应必须被抑制时），年轻驾驶员和老年驾驶员的反应时间显著增加，特别是当干扰刺激必须被忽略时。结果表明，在关键的交通情况下，分心对驾驶性能的影响很大，并表明在年轻和老年司机驾驶相关的抑制赤字。(C)2019爱思唯尔有限公司版权所有。
Driver distraction is one major cause of road traffic accidents. In order to avoid distraction-related accidents it is important to inhibit irrelevant stimuli and unnecessary responses to distractors and to focus on the driving task, especially when unpredictable critical events occur. Since inhibition is a cognitive function that develops until young adulthood and decreases with increasing age, young and older drivers should be more susceptible to distraction than middle-aged drivers. Using a driving simulation, the present study investigated effects of acoustic and visual distracting stimuli on responses to critical events (flashing up brake lights of a car ahead) in young, middle-aged, and older drivers. The task difficulty was varied in three conditions, in which distractors could either be ignored (perception-only), or required a simple response (detection) or a complex Go-/NoGo-response (discrimination). Response times and error rates to the critical event increased when a simultaneous reaction to the distractor was required. This distraction effect was most pronounced in the discrimination condition, in which the participants had to respond to some of the distracting stimuli and to inhibit responses to some other stimuli. Visual distractors had a stronger impact than acoustic ones. While middle-aged drivers managed distractor inhibition even in difficult tasks quite well (i.e., when responses to distracting stimuli had to be suppressed), response times of young and old drivers increased significantly, especially when distractor stimuli had to be ignored. The results demonstrate the high impact of distraction on driving performance in critical traffic situations and indicate a driving-related inhibition deficit in young and old drivers. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.