Detrimental effects of carryover of eye movement behaviour on hazard perception accuracy: Effects of driver experience, difficulty of task, and hazardousness of road.

Abstract

Novice drivers are more likely to be involved in road accidents than experienced drivers and this relates to their lower performance in hazard perception tasks. Hazard perception performed under dual task conditions is also affected differentially due to driver experience. In this study, we explore the detrimental effect of vertical eye-movement carryover from one task to a second task in drivers of different levels of experience, whilst accounting for road conditions. Participants searched letters presented horizontally, vertically, or in a random array. Following this, they identified a hazard in a driving scene. Carryover of eye movements from the letter search to the driving scene was observed and participants were quicker and more accurate when responding to a hazard following horizontal scanning, compared to following vertical and random scanning. Furthermore, while carryover of eye movements was equivalent for all participants, the negative effect it had on hazard identification accuracy was less prominent in experienced drivers, especially when viewing the most hazardous of images. These results indicate that carryover of eye movements is another potentially distracting effect that can impact on the ability and safety of novice drivers.