Mental Tasks Distract Drivers

Spanish study finds math calculations, for instance, affect your road awareness

(HealthDay is the new name for HealthScoutNews.)

MONDAY, June 30, 2003 (HealthDay News) -- If you're one of the millions of Americans heading out for summer vacation by car, the findings of this small study are meant for you: Complicated mental tasks and driving just don't mix.

That's the bottom line from Spanish researchers, whose work is published in the June issue of Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied.

The researchers evaluated 12 adults, average age 23, as they drove for about four hours on the highway north of Madrid. They were asked to perform various tasks as they drove, and the researchers used an eye-tracking system that helped them study the drivers' gaze for signs of attention and distraction.

Doing complicated mental tasks while driving -- such as tallying up your vacation bill and dividing it by the number of days -- can greatly reduce your performance and lead to accidents, says study co-author Luis Miguel Nunes Gonzalez, a researcher at Spain's Public Administration for Traffic Safety.

The drivers were asked to perform many tasks, such as responding to spotlights periodically flashed into their visual field by pressing buttons near the steering wheel. They were asked to listen to recorded audio messages with information of varying difficulty and to recap what they had heard.

Drivers also received phone calls using hands-free and voice-operated technology. They were asked to calculate in their head how to convert Euros to Spanish pesetas and to relate from memory where they were and what they were doing at a specific day and time.

If you do tasks that involve demanding mental calculation, Gonzalez says, "you are incapacitated to detect visual stimuli [such as the spotlights]." Not detecting the spotlights in time in the study, he says, would be akin to not seeing the car in front of you activate a turn signal.

With complex mental tasks, drivers did more poorly on detecting targets and giving correct responses. Sometimes their performance was 30 percent poorer than compared to control conditions, Gonzalez says.

While many studies have confirmed that external distractions impair drivers, the new study, the authors say, focuses on the dangers of internal distractions -- those produced by the driver's thoughts or cognitive activity -- such as mathematics that is unrelated to driving.

When mentally distracted, Gonzalez says, drivers just don't see objects well or fast enough to use their driving skills.

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Another expert who has researched driver distraction says the results seem reasonable to him. They are "quite consistent with UMTRI research," says Barry Kantowitz, director of the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute and a veteran researcher in the field.

"It is very likely that these results apply to U.S. drivers," he adds.

Even though the drivers in the study were young, Gonzalez says he thinks the same would apply for more experienced drivers. "We compared the same individual against himself in different conditions," he adds.

Based on the study, Gonzalez has lots of advice for drivers. "Distraction affects everybody," he says. "If you do tasks that are demanding [as you drive], such as mental calculations, you are incapacitated to detect visual stimuli."

More information

For information about another kind of distraction, drowsy driving, see National Sleep Foundation. For information on how the radio may distract, see AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.

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