Further development of a commercial driving simulation for research in occupational medicine

Abstract

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to refine a commercial car driving simulation for occupational research. As the effects of ethanol on driving behavior are well established, we choose alcohol as a test compound to investigate the performance of subjects during simulation. Materials and Methods: We programmed a night driving scenario consisting of monotonous highway and a rural road on a Foerst F10-P driving simulator. Twenty healthy men, 19-30 years, participated in a pilot study. Subjects were screened for simulator sickness, followed by training on the simulator one hour in total. Experiments were performed in the morning on a separate day. Participants were randomized into either an alcoholized or a control group. All subjects drove two courses consisting of highway and rural road and were sober for the first course. During a 1 h break the ethanol group drank an alcoholic beverage to yield 0.06% blood alcohol concentration (BAC). Generalized linear mixed models were used to analyze the influence of alcohol on driving performance. Among others, independent variables were Simulator Sickness Questionnaire scores and subjective sleepiness. Results: Subjects did not experience simulator sickness during the experiments. Mean BAC before the second test drive was 0.065% in the mildly intoxicated group. There was no clear-cut difference in the number of crashes between 2 groups. BAC of 0.1% would deteriorate mean braking reaction time by 237 ms (SE = 112, p < 0.05). Ethanol slightly impaired the tracking in the righthand curves (p = 0.058). Braking reaction time improved by 86 ms (SE = 36, p < 0.05) for the second test drive, indicating a learning effect. Conclusions: In sum, a clear ethanol effect was observed in the driving simulation. This simulation seems suitable for occupational research and produces little simulator sickness. Controlling for possible learning effects is recommended in driving simulation studies.

Driving simulator sickness: Impact on driving performance, influence of blood alcohol concentration, and effect of repeated simulator exposures

“…This strengthens the notion that SDLP is a robust parameter of drug related driving impairment in simulator studies (Mets et al, 2011;Helland et al, 2013;Helland et al, 2016). Our results are in accordance with the findings in another simulator study (Muttray et al, 2013), where simulator sickness was found not to influence lane keeping behavior; however, the participants of that study reported very low simulator sickness scores. Similarly, there were no significant relations between simulator sickness and several other measures of driving behavior in the simulator, such as standard deviation of speed, steering wheel movement measures, and brake or accelerator pedal pressures per distance driven.…”

“…It has been shown that driving scenarios with many curves and long duration are prone to provoke simulator sickness in test subjects (Classen et al, 2011). Another simulator study that employed a rural driving scenario found low ratings of simulator sickness, assessed with the Simulator Sickness Questionnaire (Muttray et al, 2013). Differences in driving scenario, duration, technical specification of the simulator and measuring methods may explain the discrepancies to our findings.…”

“…The SSQ is time consuming, which makes it challenging to fit into an experimental design. Furthermore, the validity of the SSQ in monotonous driving tests of long duration has been questioned, since items such as "fatigue" and "difficulty concentrating" included in the SSQ are not specific to simulator sickness and may instead be due to sleepiness (Muttray et al, 2013).…”

Circadian Sleep Propensity and Alcohol Interaction at the Wheel

“…4 When associated with sleepiness, even low levels of alcohol intake can severely impair driving performance and risk perception. [5][6][7][8] Consistently, field studies suggested that serious road crashes more likely occur when sleepiness or fatigue are combined with alcohol intake. 9,10 The effect of sleepiness on car crashes in field studies was also evaluated by applying mathematical models considering the circadian and homeostatic processes of sleepwake regulation 11,12 : estimated sleepiness proved to be an effective predictor of road crashes with a significant interaction with alcohol consumption.…”

The analysis of drivers’ reaction time using cell phone In the case of vehicle stabilization task

“…While many countries have a ban on using a phone (for typing, reading the text, speaking), this ban is often ignored. Research is often performed: with participants using a vehicle simulator [13]; examining the statistics of a phone usage during accidents; investigating the influence of personality to the inclination to use a phone while driving. In this study a detail review of various pieces of research about the driver's reaction time and the influencing factor of a cell phone usage is done.…”