25 – Driver Distraction /Bringing Sports into the Lab

25
How much does talking or texting on a smart phone impair driving performance? How can we get drivers’ attention back on the road?
How can we effectively bring the sports field into the lab by creating representative task designs? Are coaches impairing skill acquisition by oversimplifying sports skills? (Time 20:47)
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Key points:
• The first time a mobile phone was identified as a cause of a traffic fatality was 2001
• There are three types of distraction that can be produced by using a phone when driving: visual (eyes off road), manual (hands off wheel) and cognitive/mental (mind off road)
• In terms of laws, 14 of the 50 states (or 28%) have a complete ban on hand-held cell phone use for all drivers, 38 (or 76%) of states ban any type of cell phone use for novices drivers, and 20 (or 40%) of states have a complete cell phone ban for school bus drivers
• The first experimental study done on phone use while driving was by Brown in 1969!
• The meta-analysis by Caird et al in 2008 found that there was an average increase in reaction time to critical events on the road of .25 sec. There was no difference in results for hands-free vs hand-held phones. There were no effects on speed or control of lane position
• 46 out of 50 states (or 92%) have a complete ban on driving while of the 4 states without complete ban 3 have limited restrictions such as school bus for school bus drivers
• The meta-analysis by Caird et al in 2014 found that typing or reading a text message had significant effects on reaction time to critical events, the number of collision, control of lane position and control of speed.
• Recent naturalistic driving studies have found similar findings for texting (drivers are 3x more likely to crash when doing this) but somewhat different findings for phone calls. In particular, there was no significant increase in the chance of crash for hands-free phone use.

Links to articles discussed:
http://about.att.com/story/smartphone_use_while_driving_grows_beyond_texting.html
Interference between concurrent tasks of driving and telephoning
A meta-analysis of the effects of cell phones on driver performance
A meta-analysis of the effects of texting on driving
http://www.ghsa.org/html/stateinfo/laws/cellphone_laws.html
Examination of gaze behaviors under in situ and video simulation task constraints reveals differences in information pickup for perception and action
Issues and challenges in developing representative tasks in sport
Monocular Optical Constraints on Collision Control

More information:
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Twitter: @Shakeywaits
Email: robgray@asu.edu

Credits:
The Flamin’ Groovies – Shake Some Action
The Mind Orchestra – Really Like Your Phone
Robin Grey – Looking for Distraction-
Poets of ELAN – I Won’t Call It
Reigning Sound – Call Me Number 1
The Monitors – No Callback
Twin Atlas – Calling For You
Lo Fi is Sci Fi – Behold! The New Design
Christian Bland & The Revelators – Emotionless Man
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