A Bit of Decline

Abstract

Cell phone use while driving has been shown to significantly impair driving performance. A limitation of current work on driver distraction, however, is that none of the research has been able to clearly measure the cognitive demand of the conversation in which a driver engages. Precise measurement of different levels of cognitive demand will improve our understanding of its impact on driving performance. Here we describe a study that uses information theory to quantify information processing in a simple, predictable way, i.e., performance decline as a function of bits of processing. These data could eventually be turned into a regressive model which matches performance loss to specific levels of cognitive demand. The goal of this experiment was to determine the degree to which performance on a tracking task was compromised when participants engaged in varying degrees of information processing. First analyses of the results indicate a significant and predictable impact of increased information processing demand on tracking performance as demonstrated by an increase in distance to the tracking target, increased response formulation, and a decrease in answer accuracy.