Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Thinking Can Make You Crash -

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2003 20:13:54 -0400

Mental Tasks Distract Drivers

Spanish study finds such internal distractions as math
calculations, for instance, can affect your road awareness,
much the way that phone calls do.

By Kathleen Doheny
HealthDay Reporter

(HealthDay is the new name for
HealthScoutNews.)

MONDAY, June 30 (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.

/

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."

http://www.healthcentral.com/news/NewsFullText.cfm?id=513906

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