Road user psychology – aspects of cognition and attention that can affect road safety

1. Samantha Jamson (S.L.Jamson@its.leeds.ac.uk)‏ • Road user psychology – aspects of cognition and attention that can affect road safety • 15th November 2016 1

2. Intro • Psychologist @ Institute for Transport Studies (UoL) • Safety and human factors aspects of road user behaviour • Effects of awareness & workload on the driving task • Development and testing of systems that support driving – e.g. adaptive systems • But also more “traditional” problems such as: Drivers’ speed Young (and elderly) drivers Impairment (fatigue/alcohol) Engineering solutions (Road layout and roadside features)

3. The effect of emotions on performance • Many cognitive processes (visual search, decision making etc.) are directly or indirectly affected by emotional state. • For example Isen (2001) shows that in most circumstances even mild positive emotion leads to more efficient, creative and flexible cognitive processing. • Positive emotion also enhances social skills and sympathy; they initiate and promote helping behaviours, such as donating to charity. • Negative and positive feelings are not two opposite sides on a scale - if someone is not happy, they are not automatically sad. We spend most of our time in a marginally positive state. • If we are in a negative state, then (unconscious) effort is expended to return us to this marginally positive state

4. Affect and arousal • Russell and Carroll (1999) proposed a bipolarity model which accounts not only for valence (i.e. happy versus sad) but for arousal as well. • Items on the right side refer to a happy cluster and those on the left side to a sad cluster. • Items on the top of the x axes relate to the high arousal and the items on the bottom of the x axes relate to the low arousal level.

5. What we know about emotion and driving • Research shows clear relationships between anger and self-reported near misses (Underwood, Chapman, Wright, & Crundall, 1999) as well as self-reported near misses and threatening driving • Mesken, Hagenzieker, Rothengatter, & De Ward, (2007) found that those participants who self-reported as feeling anger drove faster and exceeded speed limits more often compared to those who did not report anger

6. Anger • Anger is more likely to occur in driving situations compared to any other context. • Drivers become angry in approximately 20% of all journeys. • Anger leads to speeding   • Anger was mostly associated with situations where an “other” was to blame, whilst anxiety occurred where the “situation” was to blame. • Anger is mostly associated with events affecting impeded progress, and anxiety with events affecting safety. • Most anger-invoking scenarios were those where “someone cuts in right in front of you on the motorway”. • But what about positive moods…..

7. . Are happy drivers safe drivers? • Three Mood conditions were induced (Happy, Neutral, Sad) • Videos containing hazards were presented • Hazard Response Time and eye fixations were measured Longest HRTs in Sad condition, shortest in Neutral Those in the Sad mood fixated longer - perhaps implying less switching of attention from one object to another Fixation Error?

8. Mood detection Technicity.Daimler.com

9. Overview • Workload and task demand • Multi tasking • Distraction • Emotion • Task experience • Fatigue • Dual tasking – car drivers, cyclists, pedestrians all slow down

10. Multi-tasking • Physical distractions can capture the gaze (e.g. looking at a mobile phone), which means withdrawing visual attention from the road ahead, • Mental distraction (e.g. worrying about an upcoming meeting) can result in ‘looking but not seeing’. • Are some types of people better at multitasking than others?

11. Multitasking while driving (e.g. mobile phone use) • Hands-free phones are no safer than hand-held ones. • Can increase risk of being involved in a crash by 4 times. • The physical and cognitive distraction impairs visual search patterns, reaction times, decision-making processes. • Sending text message more distracting than talking on mobile • Talking on a mobile is more distracting than holding an intelligent conversation with a passenger • Department for Transport figures show that a driver being impaired or distracted by their phone had been a contributory factor in 440 accidents in Britain last year, including 22 which were fatal and 75 classed as serious. • DVLA showed almost 240,000 drivers had been caught driving whilst distracted at least once, with 10,000 caught twice and 600 caught three times. Research informs us: Reality out there:

12. What are the behavioural markers? • Greater lane position deviations and exceedences • Larger variations in driving speeds (particularly reductions) • Reactions to external events or objects are generally slower • Accept shorter gaps in traffic when turning CYCLISTS Kircher et al 2015 PEDESTRIANS

13. Is legislation is the answer? • Those drivers residing in the higher legislated countries were just as likely to enter or change destinations in their PND, as those in the lowest. • Compared to Swedish drivers, UK drivers were half as likely to text, Italian drivers (with the strictest legislation), were just as likely to text as Swedish drivers. • Those in the more stringent counties were more likely to change their music selection In Italy, for example, drivers were twice as likely to change their music selection compared to Swedish, Polish and UK drivers. • Younger drivers were twice as likely to enter/change destinations, 5 times as likely (for the youngest drivers) to change their music selection, and 15 times as likely to text • Only in severe and “obvious” cases of distraction, i.e. watching a TV, did drivers’ evaluation of the distracting effects have an impact

14. Other ways to incentivise safe driving • Golden rules: • Shift up as soon as possible • Maintain a steady speed • Decelerate smoothly • Anticipate traffic flow • Speed reductions of 3 to 4% (free driving) • Typically a reduction of speed of 2 to 3% at specific locations • Hard braking and harsh accelerations: reduced by 5% to 10%

15. Thank you for listening!