Overload depending on driving experience and situation complexity: Which strategies faced with a pedestrian crossing?

Abstract

To cite this version:Julie Paxion, Edith Galy, Catherine Berthelon. Overload depending on driving experience and situation complexity: which strategies faced with a pedestrian crossing?. Applied Ergonomics, Elsevier, 2015, pp.343-349. 10 AbstractThe purpose of this study was to identify the influence of situation complexity and driving experience on subjective workload and driving performance, and the less costly and the most effective strategies faced with a hazard pedestrian crossing. Four groups of young drivers (15 traditionally trained novices, 12 early-trained novices, 15 with three years of experience and 15 with a minimum of five years of experience) were randomly assigned to three situations (simple, moderately complex and very complex) including unexpected pedestrian crossings, in a driving simulator. The subjective workload was collected by the NASA-TLX questionnaire after each situation. The main results confirmed that the situation complexity and the lack of experience increased the subjective workload. Moreover, the subjective workload, the avoidance strategies and the reaction times influenced the number of collisions depending on situation complexity and driving experience. These results must be taken into account to target the prevention actions.

Measuring mental workload with the NASA-TLX needs to examine each dimension rather than relying on the global score: an example with driving

“…The workload generated by the driving activity can also explain why young drivers have been found to be disproportionately involved in road accidents, despite the introduction of a three-year probationary period after the obtention of the driving license. Learner drivers have been found to have a lower threshold of overload (Paxion, Galy and Berthelon 2015), probably owing to their lack of automated routines (Amalberti 1996;Cegarra and Hoc 2006;De Craen et al 2008;De Waard 1996) and the higher cognitive cost of driving (Damm et al 2011). Because of this low level of automatization, they have greater difficulty implementing the relevant strategies and allocate fewer resources to germane load, even if the task is simple and performed in a favourable context.…”

Subjective responses of mental workload during real time driving: A pilot field study

“…When compared to Session B, the mental workload was reduced by 52.57% for Session A, and 27.73 % for Session C. This finding is consistent with the emphasized findings by Verwey [6] stating that a driving situation constitutes the major determinant of the mental workload of drivers. Similarly, Paxion [11] reported that an increase of subjective workload was globally observed when the situation complexity increased, with a tendency to higher self-assessment of the workload in very complex situation than in the simple one. It is anticipated in this study that city driving will score the highest workload, however, the result is contradict which it is probably due to lack complexity of the traffic density of the city during the experimental session.…”

How Common In-Car Distractions Affect Driving Performance in Simple and Complex Road Environments

“…An urban environment with heavy traffic, dense roadside scenery and many potential turns will contribute to a driver's cognitive load much more than a rural environment light traffic, sparse roadside scenery and few turns (Paxion, Galy, & Berthelon, 2015). Therefore, engaging in secondary tasks while driving in a complex road environment carries a higher risk of collision than doing so in a simple road environment.…”