The influence of switching task goals on driver’s vigilance decrement

Kinosada, Yasunori · 2019 · Crossref

DOI: 10.4992/pacjpa.83.0_1a-048

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Summary

This study investigates whether temporarily switching task goals during long-duration driving can mitigate vigilance decrement, a known decline in sustained attention over time. The research is motivated by the context of Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) systems, which reduce the cognitive load of speed regulation but require drivers to maintain continuous monitoring of the traffic environment and vehicle position. While ACC alleviates some mental burden, the necessity for persistent surveillance remains, making drivers susceptible to vigilance decrement. The authors hypothesized that inserting a different visual sustained attention task midway through a drive might refresh attention and reduce this decline. The experiment involved 33 adult Japanese drivers, with 24 participants included in the final analysis after exclusions for instruction misunderstanding or excessive inappropriate responses. Participants drove a simulator on a three-lane straight road for approximately 51 minutes, maintaining lane position while ACC controlled speed and following distance. The study employed a within-subjects design with two conditions: "Continuous," where participants monitored for turn signals throughout the drive, and "Switch," where the task goal changed during the middle period (Period 2) to monitoring speed limit icons, while ignoring other vehicles. The driving session was divided into four periods. Statistical analyses used Bayesian linear mixed models via the R package `brms` to assess miss rates, reaction times, and lateral deviation distance. The results indicated no significant vigilance decrement regarding the monitoring of other vehicles. Miss rates for brake lights and turn signals were low across all conditions, suggesting the task was too easy or the environment lacked sufficient uncertainty to induce a decline in detection performance. Consequently, no significant effects were found for experimental condition or period on miss rates or reaction times. However, vigilance decrement was confirmed for lane-keeping performance. Lateral deviation distance from the center of the lane significantly increased from Period 1 to Period 3, indicating a decline in sustained attention for vehicle positioning. This increase was small, averaging approximately 5 cm. Crucially, the temporary switch in task goals did not suppress this decline; there were no significant main effects for the experimental condition or interactions between condition and period on lateral deviation. The study concludes that while ACC reduces specific operational loads, it does not eliminate the mental burden associated with long-duration driving, as evidenced by the deterioration in lane-keeping precision. Furthermore, the strategy of temporarily switching task goals was ineffective in preventing vigilance decrement in this context. The authors suggest that the lack of effect on vehicle monitoring may be due to the ease of discriminating between brake lights and turn signals in the simulated environment. The findings highlight the need for further verification, as previous research on the impact of goal switching on vigilance has yielded inconsistent results.

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Topics

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• vigilance
• time on task
• sustained attention vigilance
• inattentional change blindness
• drowsiness
• temporal

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• Empirical Findings: behavioral performance data, physiological data
• Theoretical Contribution: theory or model