The performance of 12 drivers with less than five years' experience, 12 drivers with an average of 13.4 years' driving experience and 12 police drivers with 20 years' experience was compared when shown 12 video clips of driving situations including police pursuits, emergency responses and law-abiding general driving. All videos were recorded in daytime with good visibility. After each video three questions were presented in turn on the screen for 20 seconds each. Twenty-one of these questions were clearly related to the driving task whereas others were less clearly driving-related. After this 96 still images were shown, half taken from the 12 video clips and half from similar clips not viewed by the participants (delayed recognition test). The eye movements, hazard responses, answers to qustions and delayed recognition test responses were recorded. An overall analysis of variance on recognition sensitivity revealed no main effects or interactions involving driver type. Driving-related material was better remembered than less relevant material for both central and peropheral items in all clips. In pursuit and response clips this relationship only holds for central items; for peripheral items it did not matter whether the material was related to driving or not. There was a clear tendency for police drivers to be more cautious than the other groups in the recognition memory test. Participants were always more likely to claim that they had seen material that was driving-related, and this was particularly true for films showing police response drives. For the covering abstract see ITRD E124157.
Abstract