Executive or Experience Investigating the Role Executive Function Plays in Driving (original) (raw)
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Executive Function Capacities, Negative Driving Behavior and Crashes in Young Drivers
International journal of environmental research and public health, 2017
Motor vehicle crashes remain a leading cause of injury and death in adolescents, with teen drivers three times more likely to be in a fatal crash when compared to adults. One potential contributing risk factor is the ongoing development of executive functioning with maturation of the frontal lobe through adolescence and into early adulthood. Atypical development resulting in poor or impaired executive functioning (as in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) has been associated with risky driving and crash outcomes. However, executive function broadly encompasses a number of capacities and domains (e.g., working memory, inhibition, set-shifting). In this review, we examine the role of various executive function sub-processes in adolescent driver behavior and crash rates. We summarize the state of methods for measuring executive control and driving outcomes and highlight the great heterogeneity in tools with seemingly contradictory findings. Lastly, we offer some suggestions for i...
Driving Under Cognitive Control: The Impact of Executive Functions in Driving
MDPI WEVJ, 2024
This review will explore the role of executive functions and the impact they have in facilitating the skills of vehicle operation. Executive functions are critical for the decision-making process, problem-solving, and multitasking. They are considered the primary factors in driving cases that demand drivers to react quickly and adapt to certain situations. Based on the PRISMA 2020 guidelines, this study aims to investigate, analyze, and categorize higher mental skills and their qualities directly related to driving. The literature review was performed in the following databases: PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar, using the article collections’ snowball search technique. The results suggest that key executive functions like working memory and inhibitory control are closely related to risky behavior and driving errors that lead to accidents. This review adds valuable insight by highlighting the significance of their contribution to future research, driver educational programs, and technology for improving driver safety. Consequently, collecting recent data will contribute to understanding new parameters that influence driving behavior, creating the possibility for appropriate proposals for future research.
Reliability and Validity of a Method for Assessment of Executive Functions in Drivers
Behavioral Sciences
The quality of drivers’ performance is one of the crucial components related to road safety. One of the key cognitive characteristics related to the ability to drive safely are executive functions. The main goal of the presented research is to propose a new method (Trace-route task) for assessment of executive functions in drivers. The present article discusses the results of two consecutive studies. Study one aims to determine the validity and reliability of the method used and includes 134 participants, equally divided in two groups—people with disturbances in executive functions and people from the general population. Study two aims to assess the ability of the method to distinguish drivers with risky behavior. It includes 1440 participants divided in two groups—people with and without actual risky driving behavior. The results from the studies show that people with different neurological or psychiatric diseases and drivers with different road violations demonstrate worse plannin...
Safe Driving and Executive Functions in Healthy Middle-Aged Drivers
The introduction of the point system driver's license in several European countries could offer a valid framework for evaluating driving skills. This is the first study to use this framework to assess the functional integrity of executive functions in middle-aged drivers with full points, partial points or no points on their driver's license (N ¼ 270). The purpose of this study is to find differences in executive functions that could be determinants in safe driving. Cognitive tests were used to assess attention processes, processing speed, planning, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control. Analyses for covariance (ANCOVAS) were used for group comparisons while adjusting for education level. The Bonferroni method was used for correcting for multiple comparisons. Overall, drivers with the full points on their license showed better scores than the other two groups. In particular, significant differences were found in reaction times on Simple and Conditioned Attention tasks (both p-values < 0.001) and in number of type-III errors on the Tower of Hanoi task (p ¼ 0.026). Differences in reaction time on attention tasks could serve as neuropsychological markers for safe driving. Further analysis should be conducted in order to determine the behavioral impact of impaired executive functioning on driving ability.
Predicting aberrant driving behaviour: The role of executive function
Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 2015
A strong link between driving behaviour and involvement in fatal crashes has been found in previous work (Rajalin, 1994). One approach to studying poor driving behaviour focuses on driver errors and violations (Reason, Manstead, Stradling, Baxter, & Campbell, 1990). Errors are the failure of planned actions to achieve their intended outcomes, which could result in potential safety threats to others, e.g., underestimating ''the speed of an oncoming vehicle when passing''. Violations could be deliberate contravention of practices which are necessary for maintaining safe vehicle operation, e.g. passing ''through an intersection even though you know that the traffic light has turned yellow and may go red'' (Zhao, Reimer, Mehler, D'Ambrosio, & Coughlin, 2013). A common measure used to assess driving errors and violations is the Driving Behaviour Questionnaire (DBQ). The DBQ's contribution in predicting crash involvement has been well established in different countries (De Winter & Dodou, 2010; Reason et al., 1990; Warner, Özkan, Lajunen, & Tzamalouka, 2011). Also, its role in mediating between traffic culture and crash involvement has been previously demonstrated (Özkan, Lajunen, Chliaoutakis, Parker, & Summala, 2006). That is, in each country, different kinds of aberrant driving behaviour may predict number of crashes. However, in most studies, violations are more likely than errors to relate to crashes (De Winter & Dodou, 2010). Several variables have been shown to be associated with driver behaviour, including demographic variables such as age, gender,
PloS one, 2016
Road crashes represent a huge burden on global health. Some drivers are prone to repeated episodes of risky driving (RD) and are over-represented in crashes and related morbidity. However, their characteristics are heterogeneous, hampering development of targeted intervention strategies. This study hypothesized that distinct personality, cognitive, and neurobiological processes are associated with the type of RD behaviours these drivers predominantly engage in. Four age-matched groups of adult (19-39 years) males were recruited: 1) driving while impaired recidivists (DWI, n = 36); 2) non-alcohol reckless drivers (SPEED, n = 28); 3) drivers with a mixed RD profile (MIXED, n = 27); and 4) low-risk control drivers (CTL, n = 47). Their sociodemographic, criminal history, driving behaviour (by questionnaire and simulation performance), personality (Big Five traits, impulsivity, reward sensitivity), cognitive (disinhibition, decision making, behavioural risk taking), and neurobiological (...
Neuropsychology and Driving Behaviour: Analysis of a complex correlation
2018
Driving is a multimodal task that requires the integrity of executive functions in order to process simultaneously multiple environmental cues, to predict the development of traffic situations, as well as to take rapid, accurate and safe decisions. Memory plays an important role, among others, on route planning and traffic signs recognition. In addition, visuospatial skills are crucial for vehicle’s road positioning along with the estimation of distances between vehicles, while attention is necessary for the accurate perception of on-road changes. The role of Neuropsychology is of critical importance for evaluating driving ability in the elderly, especially in the case of drivers with cognitive disorders, such as Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer’s Dementia. Regarding the driving competence of drivers with Mild Cognitive Impairment, in the majority of cases they are considered capable of driving. Although Alzheimer’s Dementia has a well-recognized and –described negative effec...
The Impact of Central Executive Function Loadings on Driving-Related Performance
ABSTRACT The study reported in this paper investigated the impact of individual ability, with respect to central executive (CE) functions, on performance of two driving-related tas s when distracted by CE loading secondary tas s. The two driving-related tas s used were visual target detection, and a one-dimensional pedal-trac ing tas designed to be an analogue of a vehicle following tas.
Cognitive Abilities Related to Driving Performance in a Simulator and Crashing on the Road
The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between performances on standardized neuropsychological measures of cognitive abilities, simulated driving performance, and state crash records in drivers with cognitive decline due to aging and dementia. Participants were 202 experienced older adult drivers ages 55 years and older: 70 had mild dementia due to probable early Alzheimer's disease and 132 had no neurologic disease. All completed a battery of neuropsychological tests and drove contemporaneously on a high fidelity simulator. The participants' State Department of Transportation driving records were monitored for up to two years after testing. The simulator composite score, reflecting overall driving ability, was significantly correlated with overall cognitive ability, as indexed by the neuropsychology composite score, as well as with individual cognitive tests of attention, memory, visuospatial and visuomotor abilities. Drivers who crashed during an intersection incursion scenario performed significantly worse on the composite measure of cognitive function than those who successfully steered around the incurring vehicle. Crashers had specific cognitive deficits on measures of visuomotor abilities and attention. Memory test performances for both verbal information and visual material were associated with subsequent on-road crashes. These findings provide support for the validity of driving simulation as a safe means of evaluating a range of driving responses that cannot be tested on the road, and suggest that relatively simple and inexpensive neuropsychological tests of specific cognitive abilities could be used to help evaluate older drivers' risk of unsafe driving