Use of Micro-Scenarios to Reduce the Effects of Simulator Sickness in Training Intervention Studies

Abstract

Older drivers are overrepresented in intersection crashes primarily because they fail to scan for potential threat vehicles after they enter a stop-controlled intersection. Existing simulator-based older driver training programs double the frequency of secondary glances that older drivers take up to two years after training. However, the simulator sickness dropout rate for this training is 40%. Two contributing factors to simulator sickness are 1) configuration of the driving simulator, and 2) duration of continuous simulator training. In this experiment, 91 older drivers were assigned to one of five groups: 3 simulator training groups, one passive training group, and one control group. Simulator training sessions were broken into segments of only 30-45 s in length. The effectiveness of the training was evaluated in the field. The most effective training was on a 3 screen simulator which doubled the frequency of secondary glances in the field and reduced simulator drop-out rates to 14.3%.