Reported Order of Importance Does not Predict Fixation Order when Viewing Driving Scenes

Abstract

Distracted driving and its negative effects on driving performance are well documented. Eye movement patterns of distracted drivers have also been studied, though insight into what the driver specifically looks at is not as well understood. Researchers have studied eye movement metrics like, eyes-off-road glance times, time-to-first-fixation, among others, over an entire drive, but not what the driver is looking at in a specific moment in time. The current study used eye tracking to investigate what objects and areas people looked at in driving scenes and what they reported they would look at later in the same scenes. The results suggest that people look where they say they would look, but not in the order they reported they would look. This finding demonstrates that participants may scrutinize scenes differently at various times, but attend to the same objects or areas, indicating an associated importance, semantic constraints, and relevance for driving.