Mobile phone use in a driving simulation task: Differences in eye movements

Abstract

Every year there are nearly 43,000 traffic fatalities and it is estimated that 25% of crashes involve some degree of driver inattention (NHSTA, 2005, 2000). A recent survey revealed 21% of crashes/near crashes reported by respondents involved at least one driver using a mobile phone (Seo & Torabi, 2004). The current study examined the effects of mobile phone use on drivers' attention and eye movements in a low-fidelity simulator. Sixteen Clemson University undergraduate students viewed 24 driving scenarios and responded to questions about vehicular events in the scenes. Eight participants simultaneously performed a language learning task (simulating a mobile phone conversation). The language learning group answered fewer questions about the driving scenes correctly (M = 9.3) than the non-language group (M = 16). Overall, participants' correctly responded to more scenarios with 4 cars (M = 7.3/12) than with 7 cars (M = 5.3/12). The total number of fixations on the vehicle(s) involved in the critical event in each scenario was greater for the non-language group (M = 471.7) than for the language group (M = 300.5). Additionally, participants in the language group who answered the event question correctly spent the same percentage of the total time looking at the vehicle of interest during the event (M = 13.5%) as those people who answered incorrectly (M = 12.4%). This finding provides support for the 'look but fail to see' phenomenon. The mean duration of total fixations was also greater for people in the non-language group (M = 9574.5 ms) than the language group (M = 6523.4 ms). This study supports previous findings that increasing mental workload (through mobile phone use, and/or increased traffic) decreases driving performance.