A Peripheral Motion Contrast Test for Prediciting Unsafe Older Driver Perfomance

描述（由申请人提供）：对于一个正常人来说，驾驶是他/她每天参与的最复杂、最危险的活动。事故统计数据显示，除了新手以外，65岁以上的司机发生的事故比其他任何群体都多。此外，随着65岁以上人群的事故率每连续10年增长一倍或三倍，这一趋势变得更糟。面临危险的不仅是司机和乘客，还有整个社会，因为老年司机与其他车辆、行人、有时甚至建筑物发生碰撞。医疗专业人员和执照审查员被社会视为防止此类事件发生的人，却没有办法快速、有效和安全地识别出有较高撞车风险的老年司机。在这里聚集的研究小组提出改进现有的基于计算机的技术，该技术过去已被证明可以预测老年驾驶员的危险驾驶行为。外周运动对比阈值（PMCT）测试是一个10分钟的外周运动检测测试（外周运动检测对驾驶非常重要）。由于目前的测试长度被认为太长，不容易在医疗或许可审查员的环境中进行，研究小组建议创建一个2分钟的测试版本；并使用一般年龄较小（50岁以上）的司机进行验证，并将其与他们在当前PMCT测试和其他普遍接受的强迫选择视觉心理物理学程序中的表现进行比较。此外，由于目标是创建一个工具来帮助检测潜在危险的老年驾驶员，老年驾驶员的2分钟PMCT测试分数也将与他们在高保真驾驶模拟器中的表现相关联。如果有效，这种方法可以用来识别潜在的高风险司机，通过训练他们采取安全的补偿策略，限制他们的特权，帮助他们克服运动处理缺陷，或者作为最后的手段，把他们从路上赶出去。部署这种测试可以显著减少每年发生的机动车碰撞、意外伤害和死亡人数。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): For a normal individual, driving is the most complex and dangerous activity that he/she will participate in on a daily basis. Accident statistics show that drivers above the age of 65 are involved in more accidents than any other group except novice drivers. Furthermore the trend gets worse as accident rates double then triple with each successive 10 year increase above the age of 65. At risk is not only the driver and their passengers, but society at large, as older drivers with age-related functional deficits collide with other vehicles, pedestrians, and sometimes even buildings. Medical professionals and licensing examiners, who are looked to by society to prevent these occurrences, have no ways to quickly, effectively, and safely identify older drivers with an elevated high risk of crash. The research team assembled here proposes to modify an existing computer based technology that has been shown in the past to predict dangerous driving performance in older drivers. The Peripheral Motion Contrast Threshold (PMCT) test is a 10 minute test of peripheral motion detection (peripheral motion detection being extremely important for driving). Because the current length of the test is perceived to be too long to easily administer in a medical or licensing examiner setting, the research team proposes to create a 2 minute version of the test; and validate it using a general population of younger (50-) drivers and comparing it to their performance on the current PMCT tests and other generally accepted forced-choice visual psychophysics procedures. Furthermore, since the goal is to create a tool to help detect potentially dangerous older drivers, older drivers' 2 minute PMCT test scores will also be correlated with their performance in a high fidelity driving simulator. If effective, this approach could be used to identify potentially high-risk drivers, assist them to overcome the motion processing deficit by training them to adopt safe compensatory strategies, limit their privileges, or as a last resort, remove them from the road. Deployment of this test could significantly reduce the number of motor vehicle crashes, unintentional injuries and fatalities that occur each year. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Motor vehicle crashes due to functional impairment of driving ability are a significant public health problem. For this effort the assembled research team proposes to improve upon an existing peripheral motion contrast threshold technology that has been shown in the past to have high correlation with high accident risk driving performance, particularly in older drivers. While a visual peripheral motion contrast assessment procedure already exist, the research team understands that the test is too long and therefore not usable by the target population of users such as health professionals and license examiners. The test will be shortened to a 2 minute version and be designed as a standalone application that can run on standard, Windows based personal computers. If effective, this approach could be used by medical professionals to identify potentially dangerous drivers, assist them to overcome the motion processing deficit by training them to adopt safe compensatory strategies, limit their privileges, or as a last resort, remove them from the road. Deployment of this test could significantly reduce the number of motor vehicle crashes, unintentional injuries and fatalities that occur each year.