Effects of Different Driving Distractions on High School Students Juliana Lamond

Problem/ Question Driving distractions recently joined alcohol and speeding as one of the leading factors in fatal and serious injury crashes. How will a high school students reaction time be affected with different driving distractions such as a conversation, texting, and visual distractions?

Background Information Longer reaction time is the outcome of the brain switching focus, or multitasking It is not possible for people to perform 2 tasks will full concentration and effectiveness concurrently There is a capacity limit to the brain Driving distractions are usually the cause of driving mistakes

Why was I interested? I have my driver’s permit Hopefully getting license soon To protect my family, friends, others, and myself

Hypothesis A high school student’s reaction time will be affected by various distractions such as having a conversation, texting, or having a visual distraction. The most distracting would likely involve more, multiple areas of the brain compared to the reaction test: texting, followed by having a conversation, and finally, visual distractions.

Online Reaction Time Test Used

Procedure 1)Quiet room with a computer was found 2)28 high school girls were randomly placed in 4 groups of 7 (girls were tested singularly) 3)Control Group a)Standard instructions were given about the online reaction time test and subject was told to begin b) Result was recorded

Procedure Continued 4)Conversation Distraction Group a)Standard instructions b) Subject was told she would be asked simple consecutive questions concurrently with the time test (same questions were used for each subject) c) Subject was told to begin the reaction test d) Result was recorded

Procedure Continued 5)Visual Distraction Group a)Standard instructions b) Subject was told she would have to study a picture that the researcher would put on the wall concurrently with the test c) Subject was told to begin the reaction test d) Result was taken

Procedure Continued 6)Texting Distraction Group a) Standard instructions b) Subject was told to memorize the sentence, ‘the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog’ c) Paper with the sentence on it was placed next to her in case she forgot d) Subject was told to take out her cell phone and text the sentence as fast as she could while taking the test e) Subject was told to begin f) Result was recorded

Variables Constants Room Computer Website Standard directions Independent Type of distraction Additional instructions for each distraction Dependent Reaction times

T-Test GroupsP-Value Control and Conversation Control and Visual0.007 Control and Texting Conversation and Visual0.5

Uncontrollable Variables Inability to gather subjects, so the subject pool was reduced Confusion to directions All girls- might have been a difference if boys were included Natural variation in reaction times Further Studies Include high school boys Larger sample sizes More distractions tested

Conclusion Texting is most distracting, followed by visual distractions and conversations, and finally no distractions Error bars based on standard deviation and the T-Test reveal that conversations and visual distractions are not scientifically significant from each other Therefore, the hypothesis was partially supported

Conclusion Continued Best thing to do while driving is to have as few distractions as possible Possible to save yourself and others from car crashes by focusing on just driving

Works Cited California Department of Motor Vehicles (2008). Driver Distractions. Retrieved from National Safety Council (2010). Understanding the Distracted Brain. Retrieved from -%20Distracted%20Driving% pdf Dux, Ivanoff, Asplund, and Marios (2006). Isolation of a Central Bottleneck of Information Processing with Time-Resolved fMRI. Retrieved from pdf U.S. Department of Transportation (2010). Research. Retrieved from Whipps (2010). Study Reveals Why We Get Distracted so Easily. Retrieved from Human Benchmark (2010). Reaction Time Test. Retrieved from