Effects of Phonological, Visual and Spatial Information Processing on a Simulated Driving Task

This dissertation reports on a thesis that examined the extent to which manipulations of secondary task perceptual and processing demands have an impact on performance of a simulated driving task. The driving simulation feature a Lane Change Test (LCT) and the adults (n = 112) in the study performed the lane change test alone and also concurrently with secondary tasks. These secondary tasks required phonological, visual, or spatial processing. Results showed that participants' lane change performance was significantly worse when secondary tasks were perceived visually than when perceived auditorily. This was true regardless of whether the prompts the drivers received were given visually (i.e., visual road signs on the simulator) or auditorily (i.e., auditory commands). The author also considered lane change performance measures broken down into three components: lane change initiation, lane maneuver quality, and lane position maintenance. The author concludes that performance of secondary tasks can interfere with driving performance and provide much needed detail about how specific perceptual and processing resources are involved in the performance of secondary tasks and driving.