Visual scan patterns of novice and experienced drivers. Paper presented at the International symposium on psychological aspects of driver behaviour, held at Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands, 2 - 6 August 1971.

By means of a newly developed television system for recording automobile drivers' eye movements, novice drivers were tested at three training levels and compared with experienced drivers. Results showed that the visual search activity of the novice drivers decreased as they gained experience. In addition, novice drivers' mean horizontal looking location was further to the right than the experienced drivers, and they used their mirror quite infrequently . It was suggested that the visual scan patterns of the novice drivers might be due to their high degree of concentration on controlling the automobile in the lateral and longitudinal modes. See also IRRD abstract no. 205244.