Professor: Liu Student: Ruby The relationship of age and cognitive characteristics of drivers to performance of driving tasks on an interactive driving simulator Professor: Liu Student: Ruby

Objective To know why age and specific cognitive and perceptual characteristics of drivers to their performance of driving tasks on an interactive driving simulator. Logo

References The accident of older drivers was including: Failure to follow traffic signs and signals. Improperly passing intersections. Making improper turns (left turns). Inaccurate lane changes. Careless backing. Driving the wrong way on one-way streets. McKnight, 1988; Yaksich, 1985; Waller, 1967 Logo

Methods Participants: 95 people. Age from 18 to 81 years old. Questionnaire. Driving experience. Accidents in the last five years. Time of day car is used. Logo

Methods The cognitive skills included: Information processing speeds Attention Memory Visuoconstructive / visuospatial Abstraction Logo

Methods Information processing speeds Posner letter matching task Recalling highly overlearned name codes from long-term memory. Sternberg short-term memory search task Scan information in immediate memory. Figural visual scanning and discrimination task Scan five figures to identify the one figure. Two-choice visual reaction time task Psychomotor response spped. Logo

Methods Attention Digit span Memory and attention. Continuous paired associates task Memory and attentional resources. Variable interstimulus Alertness. Logo

Methods Abstraction Digit symbol substitution (WAIS-R) Trial making test A & B (TMTA and TMTB) Visuoconceptual and visuomotor tracking. (involves motor speed and attention). Digit symbol substitution (WAIS-R) Visuoperceptual and motor processes. Logo

Results Older persons were less likely to have been involved in an accident than younger persons. (r=-.27, p=.008) Total have 95 subjects, but only 64 subjects completed all aspects of the simulator driving. Logo

Results Relationship of age to cognitive characteristics Age of the cognitive characteristics mentioned above showed significantly poorer performance on all the variables, except three: Digit span Number of errors on trial making tasks A & B. Logo

Results Relationship of age and cognitive characteristics of drivers to driving performance. Collisions Collisions ere significantly related to poor lane keeping (r=.33, p=.004) and going over the median (r=.40, p=.001) . A multiple regression analysis showed going over the median to be the best predictor of collisions. (Beta=.40, p=.009) Logo

Results Relationship of age and cognitive characteristics of drivers to driving performance. Lane keeping Poor performance on the lane keeping task was related to slower speed on the TMTB task (r=.39, p=.001) and increasing age (r=-.31, p=.006) Logo

Results Relationship of age and cognitive characteristics of drivers to driving performance. Number of times off median Speed on the two choice reaction time task was significantly related to the number of times the subject went over the median on straight roads. (r=.35, p=.002) The slower the reaction time on the two choice task, the more often the subjects went over the meidan. Logo

Results Relationship of age and cognitive characteristics of drivers to driving performance. Logo

Results Relationship of age and cognitive characteristics of drivers to driving performance. The number of times the subjects went off the road increased significantly in relation poor far visual acuity (r=.58, p<.0001). Slow speed on the two choice reaction time (r=.41, p=.001). Lower speed on the TMTA (r=.57, p<.0001). Errors on the TMTB (r=.50, p<.0001). Slow speed on the TMTB task (r=.65, p<.0001). Logo

Results Relationship of age and cognitive characteristics of drivers to driving performance. Reaction to a vehicle’s sudden action A significant relationship was found between performance on the variable interstimulus task and stopping at the appearance of the van (r=-.64, p<.0001). Logo

Results Relationship of age and cognitive characteristics of drivers to driving performance. Reaction to a stop light The score on the digit span backward was significant (r=.42, p<.0001). Reaction to stop sign No significant was found in here. Logo

Results Relationship of age and cognitive characteristics of drivers to driving performance. Knowledge of traffic signs Age was significant to the number of traffic signs identified (r=-.46, p<.0001). The free recall score on the California verbal learning test was significant related to the number of traffic signs (r=.42, p<.0001) Logo

Results Relationship of age and cognitive characteristics of drivers to driving performance. Left turn performance 51 subjects completed the left turn and without collision. The subject waited before turning increased significantly in relation to the: Age (r=.43, p=.002) Poor near visual acuity (r=.42, p=.002) Slow reaction time(r=.43, p=.003) Logo

Discussion None of the cognitive characteristics of drivers were related to collisions. They were related to driving tasks and driving outcomes. Age sensitive cognitive and perceptual characteristics of drivers in the performance of driving tasks and important of distinct cognitive characteristics to particular tasks. Logo