This experiment was conducted simulating the situation where a driver attempts to drive cross country. The automobile used was a 1963 chevrolet sedan which had been modified by the installation of an oscillograph recorder which yields a permanent trace of the vehicle and driver performance parameters on photographic paper. The parameters that were recorded include' vehicle velocity, gas pedal position, steering wheel position, and brake pedal position. Another modification was the installation of a device enabling an experimenter riding in the back seat to induce a miss into the engine. Seven subjects were required to drive for 24-hour periods with rest breaks only at refueling stops. In addition, one subject attempted the experiment under the added condition of prior sleep deprivation and once again under prior sleep deprivation plus the use of the drug, dextroamphetamine sulfate. The four main performance measures which were obtained from the data collected, velocity means, velocity variances, steering wheel reversals, and gas pedal reversals, were subjected to several regression analyses. The most prominent effect of the administration of drugs was the fact that the subject was able to drive twice as long as he had been able to without drugs. This supports the conclusion that drugs maintain high levels of performance in vigilance tasks over extended periods. Several subjects exhibited a tendency to rely on the edge-stripe on the highway for lateral placement which indicates the tunnel vision effect.
Abstract