This article describes work which investigates drivers' ability to remember what happened after driving in potentially dangerous situations. Two studies are presented. The first consisted of 30 drivers driving a car around a route near Cambridge, and rating their "feeling of risk" at each of the 40 junctions on a 20 point scale. After the drive the experimenter unexpectedly asked the driver to describe what happened at as many of the junctions as possible. The results indicate that drivers tend to recall situations in which they felt at risk more often than those in which they do not. The second experiment used a recognition paradigm, thus obviating the necessity for the driver to give a risk rating at the time of observing the traffic situation. Seventy two drivers were used in this study. Subjects were chosen to represent a wide range of ages and amounts of driving experience. Each driver was asked to watch a series of 60 videos, each film lasting less than one minute and showing an unobstructive view ahead while driving through one of 10 different junctions. Subjects watched 30 of the films while performing two sets of judgement tasks: a) estimation of risk and accident ratings; and b) speed assessments and assessment of the "normality" of the situation. With the remaining 30 films, drivers were just asked to say whether they had seen the film or not. The results of the two experiments are compared and evaluated.
Samenvatting