Saccades and driving

Abstract

SUMMARY Driving is not only a physical task, but is also a mental task. Visual inputs are indispensable in scanning the road, communicating with other road users and monitoring in-vehicle devices. The probability to detect an object while driving (conspicuity) is very important for assessment of driving effectiveness, and correct choice of information relevant to the safety of driving determines the efficiency of a driver. Accordingly, eye fixation and eye movements are essential for attention and choice in decision making. Saccades are the most used and effective means of maintaining a correct fixation while driving. In order to identify the features of the most predisposed subjects at high driving performances and those of the high-level sportsmen, we used a special tool called Visual Exploration Training System. We evaluated by saccade and attentional tests various groups of ordinary drivers, past professional racing drivers, professional truck drivers and professional athletes. Males have faster reaction time compared to females and an age below 30 seems to guarantee better precision of performance and accuracy in achieving all visual targets. The effect on physical activity and sports is confirmed. The performances of the Ferrari Driver Academy (FDA) selected students who were significantly better than those of a group of aspiring students and amateur racing drivers probably thanks to individual predisposition, training and so-called ‘ neural efficiency ’.

Comparing oculomotor efficiency and visual attention between drivers and non-drivers through the Adult Developmental Eye Movement (ADEM) test: A visual-verbal test

“…Our results match those presented by Gene-Sampedro et al [20] in terms of test performance among different age groups and showed that younger subjects (under 44 years old) had better results than older ones in almost all the testing variables that were analyzed. Those results are consistent with other authors who found a decline in ocular searching speed with the increase of age [6,27,28]. Accordingly, Guidetti et al [6] concluded that age below 30 seems to guarantee a better precision of performance, as well as accuracy in detecting visual targets through saccadic eye movements.…”

“…When driving, most of the information is received through the visual system [3][4][5]. By means of optimal eye movements and attention, visual information can be recognized, analyzed, and processed, thus allowing the driver to understand, organize and act within a dynamic environment [3,[6][7][8]. In fact, visual attention errors have been related to a large proportion of traffic accidents [9][10][11].…”

“…Saccades move the eye to fix an object inside the fovea (central vision). They are highly related to the interaction between central and peripheral vision, and they have been identified as one of the most important ocular movements in both driving and other daily activities [6,8,14]. For instance, the carryover of eye-movements from one task affects the visual scanning in a second task [15,16].…”

Sport as a Factor in Improving Visual Spatial Cognitive Deficits in Patients with Hearing Loss and Chronic Vestibular Deficit

“…Indeed, in this way, the newborn can develop spatial-temporal reasoning, a sense of direction, saccadic spatial exploration and motor coordination. Physical activity activates different neural networks compared to a sedentary life; this promotes the development of new cognitive strategies characterized by better spatial-temporal reasoning and navigation skills, which are useful in a person’s social life, in particular in sport and driving [ 45 , 46 ].…”

Feasibility and Validity of a Low-Cost Racing Simulator in Driving Assessment after Stroke

“…Research simulator measures included standard deviation of lateral position (SDLP; i.e., weaving) averaged through a scenario, speed through courses (minimum, maximum, average), braking (maximum degree of brake pedal depression), safety errors (e.g., collisions, off-road excursions, and traffic signal violations), serialization of vehicle control inputs during emergency maneuvering, time-to-collision (TTC), and eye movement parameters (not reported here) [27,[43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51]. A pedal error was considered to be unintentional application of the wrong pedal (e.g., braking instead of accelerating) or unintentional application of both pedals simultaneously.…”