title: Fluctuating attentional demand in a simulated driving assessment: the roles of age and driving complexity.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The purpose of the study was to explore age differences in attentional demand in response to driving situations of varying complexity within the context of a simulated assessment protocol. It was hypothesized that as road complexity increased, an indicator of attentional demand (i.e., latency to respond to a secondary task) would increase and, independent of the road complexity, older adults would exhibit greater attentional demand in comparison with younger and middle-aged drivers.
  
  
  METHODS
  Drivers from 3 age categories (i.e., young, middle-aged, and older) completed an assessment protocol in a STISIM driving simulator (Systems Technology, Inc., Hawthorne, CA) during which participants responded to a series of strategically placed secondary tasks (i.e., peripheral detection tasks, PDTs). Situations where secondary tasks occurred were grouped according to whether they were straight-road, crossing-path, or lane-change events. Two global indices of driving safety as well as several cognitive measures external to the driving simulator were also collected.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The results supported the hypothesis in that complex driving situations elicited greater attentional demand among drivers of all ages. Older adults showed greater attentional demand in comparison to young and middle-aged adults even after controlling for baseline response time. Older drivers also scored poorer on a global measure of driving safety.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The findings are highly consistent with the literature on road complexity and attention that show that increased driving complexity is associated with poorer performance on tasks designed to concurrently assess attention, an effect that is more pronounced for older drivers. The results point to intrinsic and extrinsic factors that contribute to motor vehicle collisions (MVCs) among older drivers. The relevance of these findings is discussed in relation to interventions and future research aimed at improving road safety.
authors: School of Psychology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. astinchc@uottawa.ca
authors: Arne
authors: A
authors: Stinchcombe
authors: Sylvain
authors: S
authors: Gagnon
authors: J Jane
authors: JJ
authors: Zhang
authors: Patricia
authors: P
authors: Montembeault
authors: Michel
authors: M
authors: Bedard
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D001288:Attention; D001334:Automobile Driving / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D003198:Computer Simulation; D004779:Environment Design / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D055815:Young Adult