Trafficking in cognition: applying cognitive psychology to driving

Abstract This paper summarises a Presidential Address to the Division of Traffic and Transportation Psychology at the 2002 International Congress of Applied Psychology. It considers whether traffic psychology is a distinct area of psychology, and concludes that the range of psychological approaches that understanding drivers and traffic requires is too pervasive for it to be so. The difficulties and shortcomings of various attempts to apply cognitive psychology to driving and traffic are explored, with respect to perceptual, motor and skilled aspects of the driving task. Examples are given of how ‘understanding driving’ poses theoretical challenges to mainstream cognitive psychology that have yet to be satisfactorily resolved.

[1]  P. Hancock,et al.  The Perception of Arrival Time for Different Oncoming Vehicles at an Intersection , 1994 .

[2]  I. Brown,et al.  Interference between concurrent tasks of driving and telephoning. , 1969, The Journal of applied psychology.

[3]  P. Ackerman,et al.  Motivation and cognitive abilities: an integrative/aptitude-treatment interaction approach to skill acquisition , 1989 .

[4]  L. Reder,et al.  The Strategy-Specific Nature of Improvement: The Power Law Applies by Strategy Within Task , 1998 .

[5]  D. Meyer,et al.  Attention and Performance XIV , 1973 .

[6]  John R. Anderson,et al.  Rules of the Mind , 1993 .

[7]  Scott D. Brown,et al.  The power law repealed: The case for an exponential law of practice , 2000, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[8]  John A. Groeger,et al.  TIME ESTIMATION IN THE TIME-TO-COLLISION TASK: THE IMPACT OF A SIMULTANEOUS SECONDARY TASK , 1999 .

[9]  I. Brown,et al.  Vision in Vehicles III , 1991 .

[10]  David N. Lee,et al.  Where we look when we steer , 1994, Nature.

[11]  V Cavallo,et al.  Visual Information and Skill Level in Time-To-Collision Estimation , 1988, Perception.

[12]  Raja Parasuraman,et al.  Varieties of attention , 1984 .

[13]  T. Caelli,et al.  Intensity, Spatial Frequency, and Temporal Frequency Determinants of Apparent Motion: Korte Revisited , 1981, Perception.

[14]  John R. Anderson.  Acquisition of cognitive skill. , 1982 .

[15]  David N. Lee,et al.  A Theory of Visual Control of Braking Based on Information about Time-to-Collision , 1976, Perception.

[16]  P. Hancock,et al.  Influence of Approach Angle on Estimates of Time-To-Contact , 1996 .

[17]  Timothy D. Lee,et al.  Motor Control and Learning: A Behavioral Emphasis , 1982 .

[18]  Frank J. Lee,et al.  Does Learning a Complex Task Have to Be Complex?: A Study in Learning Decomposition , 2001, Cognitive Psychology.

[19]  W H Warren,et al.  Visual control of braking: a test of the tau hypothesis. , 1995, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[20]  I. J. Myung,et al.  Toward an explanation of the power law artifact: Insights from response surface analysis , 2000, Memory & cognition.

[21]  David Shinar,et al.  How Automatic Is Manual Gear Shifting? , 1998, Hum. Factors.

[22]  Allen and Rosenbloom Paul S. Newell,et al.  Mechanisms of Skill Acquisition and the Law of Practice , 1993 .

[23]  Walter Schneider,et al.  Controlled and automatic human information processing: II. Perceptual learning, automatic attending and a general theory. , 1977 .

[24]  A T Welford.  Acquiring skill: some experiences. , 1988, Journal of motor behavior.

[25]  J. Gibson,et al.  A theoretical field-analysis of automobile-driving , 1938 .

[26]  A. Horst.  A time-based analysis of road user behaviour in normal and critical encounters , 1990 .

[27]  W. Warren,et al.  Visual guidance of walking through apertures: body-scaled information for affordances. , 1987, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[28]  J. Duncan,et al.  The control of skilled behavior: learning, intelligence, and distraction , 1993 .

[29]  T. Rickard.  Bending the power law : A CMPL theory of strategy shifts and the automatization of cognitive skills , 1997 .

[30]  H. Ross,et al.  Optic-Flow and Cognitive Factors in Time-to-Collision Estimates , 1983, Perception.

[31]  David N. Lee.  Visual proprioceptive control of stance , 1975 .

[32]  J. Tresilian.  Empirical and theoretical issues in the perception of time to contact. , 1991, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[33]  Lee Dn,et al.  The optic flow field: the foundation of vision. , 1980 .

[34]  J. Gibson.  The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception , 1979 .

[35]  Paul M. Fitts,et al.  Perceptual-Motor Skill Learning1 , 1964 .

[36]  David N. Lee,et al.  Visual control of locomotion. , 1977, Scandinavian journal of psychology.

[37]  A. W. Melton.  Categories of Human Learning , 1964 .

[38]  T. Rothengatter,et al.  Traffic and Transport Psychology: Theory and Application , 1997 .

[39]  J. Groeger.  Understanding Driving: Applying Cognitive Psychology to a Complex Everyday Task , 2000 .

[40]  B. Hills.  Vision, Visibility, and Perception in Driving , 1980, Perception.