Distracted driving has received increased attention in the literature due to potential adverse safety outcomes. Working memory (WM) capacity supports goal-directedness which minimizes the influence of distracting stimuli in favour of driving-relevant stimuli. Visuospatial and verbal WM capacity can be discriminated and are both addressed during driving. An often posed solution to distracted driving is hands-free technology which should reduce detrimental effects of secondary tasks on driving performance. Interference by distraction can however occur directly at the level of sensory input (e.g., visual) and at the level of WM capacity. Hands-free technology still induces WM load and thereby also leads to decreased driving performance. This study investigated, for young novice drivers (n= 51, age= 17-25), the influence of visuospatial and verbal WM capacity on lane change task (LCT) performance when combined with verbal WM load with increasing complexity (i.e., induced by an auditory-verbal response N-back task). Dependent measures of interest were mean deviation in the lane change path (MDEV), lane change initiation (LCI) and percentage of correct lane changes (PCL). Performance on each measure deteriorated with increasing verbal WM load. Meanwhile, higher WM capacity related to better LCT performance. These relations however differed for visuospatial (MDEV and PCL) and verbal (MDEV and LCI) WM capacity. For PCL, young novice drivers with higher verbal WM capacity were influenced less by the increasing verbal WM load. Based on the current findings it can be concluded that both training WM capacity and limiting distraction can minimize crash risks among young novice drivers. This publication may be accessed by Internet users at: http://www.ictct.org/workshop.php?workshop_nr=35
Samenvatting