Subsidiary-Task Assessment of age Differences in Attentional Capacity during Real and Simulated Driving: A Preliminary Analysis of the Data

Abstract

Advances in ITS in-vehicle technologies promise to impose new information-processing demands upon drivers. Potential information “overload” problems may become especially acute among older drivers – the fastest growing segment of the driving population. In this investigation, the efficacy of a subsidiary task technique for detecting and quantifying age-differences in the attentional demands of driving-related tasks was evaluated. Young (mean age = 19.6) and old (mean age = 71.3) licensed drivers participated in a simulated as well as an on-the-road driving task while simultaneously performing a series of simple mental arithmetic computations. Response latencies on the mental arithmetic task slowed significantly for the old — but not young — drivers as the primary task of driving was made more difficult. Steering error did not change under dual-task versus single-task conditions suggesting that the mental arithmetic protocol was minimally intrusive for both young and older adults.