Using the stop-change paradigm to retrain automatic behaviour at amber traffic light

Introduction  How many of you have ‘jumped’ amber traffic lights?  85% of motorists admit to occasionally jumping amber lights (THRIFTY, 2011).  Dangerous and illegal.  Can psychology change people’s driving behaviour?

Past research  Cues and actions become automatically linked (Stacy & Wiers, 2010).  Research has used response inhibition training to change meaning of a cue.  Retraining implicit associations can reduce unhealthy food consumption (Veling, Aarts, & Stroebe, 2013).  Lead to long-term changes.

Hypothesis  It is hypothesised that participants receiving cue- specific inhibition training will be more likely to stop at amber lights post-training than those who do not receive cue-specific inhibition training.

Method: Design  42 participants (31 female; mean age: 22.24; SD= 5.09) were recruited using opportunity sampling.  The study used a 2 x2 design, with two levels.  Group (experiment vs. control condition; between) vs. Time (pre- and post-training performance; within). Driving GameTrainingDriving Game

Inhibition task Control groupExperimental group Green Trials 70% of trials Response is key-press: Red Trials 15% of trials Response is key-press: Stop- Change Trials 15% of trials Initially… Then, Response is key-press: * Random allocation to delay of 50ms, 150ms, 300ms

Driving game: Stop Light Task 30 junctions per round 8

Results p =.004

Discussion  Results supported the hypothesis.  Inhibition training did modify behaviour.  Interesting addition to research.  Training could be applied to a variety of different settings.

Discussion: Limitations  However, the novel status of the study raises issues  The control condition still received inhibition training (so they worked their inhibition muscle).  Use of students limited our pool of driving experience.  Results will need to be replicated.  Unsure how long the effect lasts.

Conclusion  The study looked at retraining people to stop at amber lights.  The inhibition training had a significant effect on behaviour, with those receiving cue-specific training stopping more often at amber lights post-training than controls.  Practical applications of research are huge.  The novel status of the research although adding to its appeal means we should be careful when considering the results.