Novice and Experienced Drivers' Looking Behavior and Primary Task Control While Doing a Secondary Task

Abstract

This study is addressed to time-sharing and primary task control during a secondary task as a function of driving experience. After about 1.5 h of test driving, when well-adapted to the experimental car, 23 novices (less than 5,000 km of driving) and 26 experienced drivers (more than 150,000 km) were asked to change a cassette in a cassette player on an ordinary two-lane road. The task was replicated three times. The results showed no difference between novice and experienced drivers in time-sharing (glance length at the in-car task and at the road), lateral position-keeping (lateral displacement as a function of time at in-car task) or control in relation to oncoming traffic. The only difference occurred in speed control, experienced drivers keeping their speed level constant while novices slowed down somewhat during the secondary task. These data showed, in a supervised experimental setting, a similar linear relationship between time spent on an in-car task and lateral displacement both for novice and experienced drivers, and a similar median time gap of about 2 s to an oncoming vehicle at the moment when both novice and experienced drivers shifted their gaze from the in-car task to the road.