The growth of expertise is frequently accompanied by an increased role being played by expectancy and anticipatory behaviour. Such influences on behaviour should be readily observable in the ways participants construe task-related scenarios, and distinguishable from more general experience gained from age. This paper reports an extensive study of how matched groups of motorists conceptualize the danger involved in various video-taped driving scenarios. Results demonstrate separable effects of both age and driving experience on the factor structure of drivers' rating of such stimuli. In particular, different emphases are placed on the danger and difficulty depicted in driving scenes. Younger drivers (irrespective of driving experience) concentrate on the danger rather than on the difficulty involved in carrying out particular manoeuvres, but then under-rate the dangers encountered. (A)
Samenvatting