Understanding drivers’ eye-movements and driving errors from the perspective of working memory

Pages: 893-897
Sajad Ahmad (Indian Institute of Technology Indore, Indore, Madhya Pradesh)
Neetu Saini (National Centre for Disability Studies, Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi)

Driving is a complex and dynamic information-processing task which requires coordination of various visual, motor and cognitive abilities (Haring, Ragni, & Konieczny, 2012). For a safe driving, a driver has to constantly update the information of the situations he is driving in, cognitively process, and accordingly act on that information without any delay. The cognitive processes that are required for driving includes attention, WM, visuospatial abilities, visual search and the knowledge associated with the details of vehicle operation. The current study engaged 30 drivers to participate in a naturalistic driving study. This study investigated the correlation between the measures of gaze behavior (in terms of fixation duration, fixation counts, visit duration & visit counts on direction signboards) of drivers and driving performance (in terms of slips & lapses). The paper discusses the role of working memory (WM) processes in distracted driving and the effects thereof on driving performance and gaze behavior of drivers.