Text Messaging versus Talking on a Cell Phone: A Comparison of their Effects on Driving Performance

Abstract

This study compared the effects of texting to other modes of responding on driving performance. While driving a simulator participants were instructed to categorize words appearing on billboards as a state (e.g., Maine), fruit (e.g., kiwi) or drink (e.g., Pepsi). The word categories were reported by texting, phoning in or identifying them aloud. There was significant effect of response mode on measures of driving performance. Drivers in the texting condition had significantly slower reaction times to peripheral letter targets, drove more slowly, exhibited greater variance in their lane position and took their eyes off of the road more often than in either the cell phone condition or the verbal condition. Drivers in the cell phone condition often performed more poorly than in the verbal response condition.