The effect of cognitive tasks on predicting eventis in traffic

Numerous studies demonstrate the negative effects of cognitively loading secondary tasks on driving performance. We assume that this effect is caused by interference between these secondary tasks and central executive functions of working memory that serve to keep the driver's situation model of the current traffic situation updated. In this experiment 48 drivers had to drive in a high fidelity driving simulator on a rural road while performing no secondary task, or a working memory task (auditive monitoring) that should not interfere with situation awareness, or a working memory task (memory updating) that should interfere with the comprehension and prediction function of situation awareness. While driving, participants had to react to events that were either announced by a warning signal or not. We hypothesized that participants will benefit least from the warning signal when they had to perform the memory updating task. The results generally support this hypothesis indicating that central executive functions of working memory are highly involved in situation awareness processes.

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