HOW MUCH VISUAL ATTENTION DOES BRAKING REQUIRE? A STUDY OF THE EFFECT OF MEMORY OF THE SCENE ON DRIVER'S BRAKING BEHAVIOUR

Braking is a common activity of driving. An important question as yet remains unanswered: how much attention, both visual and mental, is required to execute a correct braking response? We measured drivers' abilities to stop accurately at visually pre-designated positions. We compared performances in two conditions: with and without continued visual input during the braking action. We found that drivers' responses differ as a function of temporal demand. When the temporal demand is high, drivers use visual information after the brake onset to adjust the braking effort. When the visual information is available, drivers brake faster, shorter and harder. Drivers' brake timing was least effective to control the distance when the temporal demand was low and visual was occluded during