Alcohol badly affects eye movements linked to steering, providing for automatic in-car detection of drink driving.
Driving is a classic example of visually guided behavior in which the eyes move before some other action. When approaching a bend in the road, a driver looks across to the inside of the curve before turning the steering wheel. Eye and steering movements are tightly linked, with the eyes leading, which allows the parts of the brain that move the eyes to assist the parts of the brain that control the hands on the wheel. We show here that this optimal relationship deteriorates with levels of breath alcohol well within the current UK legal limit for driving. The eyes move later, and coordination reduces. These changes lead to bad performance and can be detected by an automated in-car system, which warns the driver is no longer fit to drive.
Marple-Horvat
Dilwyn E
DE
Institute for Biophysical and Clinical Research into Human Movement (IRM), Manchester Metropolitan University, Cheshire, UK. D.E.Marple-Horvat@mmu.ac.uk
Cooper
Hannah L
HL
Gilbey
Steven L
SL
Watson
Jessica C
JC
Mehta
Neena
N
Kaur-Mann
Daljit
D
Wilson
Mark
M
Keil
Damian
D
D000328:Adult; D000438:Alcohols / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D001334:Automobile Driving; D017076:Computer-Aided Design; D005133:Eye Movements / Q000187:drug effects*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000502:physiology; D014741:Video Recording / Q000379:methods
D000438:Alcohols