The effects of cellular telephone manipulation and conversation while driving on driver reaction time and subjective mental workload were researched in two experiments. In the first study, the effects of cellular telephone manipulation were investigated. The experiment was conducted on a driving simulator. The cellular telephone was located in two positions. The results of this experiment indicated that the hands-free system provided less effect than the hand-held system. In the second study, the effects of conversation through cellular telephone while driving were investigated. The experiment was conducted on an expressway in Japan. The subjects performed two types of conversation through cellular telephone while driving. The results of this experiment indicated that the telephone tasks increase the reaction time and subjective mental workload of the drivers as were shown in the early study. The results also indicated that the complex conversation task produced an increase in reaction time as compared to the simple conversation task independent of age group. Furthermore, the experiment indicated that subjective mental workload also increased significantly in the complex conversation task as compared to the other tasks.
Abstract