In the context of establishing some type of relationship between drivers' functional abilities and probability of road accidents, an interesting parameter is the useful field of view -UFOV- which takes into account both perceptive and cognitive processes involved in the detection, the localisation and the identification of visual information from the external environment. Knowing that ageing has a strong effect on these abilities, our study aims at investigating the UFOV on a sample of elderly drivers, under dynamic experimental conditions. This approach allows, firstly, to identify relationships between the level of attentional demand complexity of the dynamic central task and the efficiency of the detection task, and, secondly, to specify if detection processes are more efficient in specific localised parts of the field of view.
Abstract