The effect of cognitive load on Detection-Response Task (DRT) performance during day- and night-time driving: A driving simulator study
DOI: 10.1016/j.trf.2023.07.002
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Summary
This study investigates how cognitive load, induced by non-visual secondary tasks, affects driving performance and the detection of peripheral stimuli during day- and night-time driving. Motivated by the high risk of distracted driving and the specific challenges of night-time visibility, the research compares young (median age 22) and older (median age 66) drivers to understand age-related differences in resource allocation and safety. The researchers conducted a driving simulator study with 37 participants using a mixed experimental design. Drivers navigated rural and urban roads under simulated day- and night-time lighting conditions. Cognitive load was manipulated using an auditory n-back task at three levels: baseline (no task), 1-back, and 2-back. To measure attentional capacity, a Detection-Response Task (DRT) was employed, requiring drivers to press a button upon detecting a peripheral visual stimulus. Performance metrics included n-back accuracy, DRT response times and miss rates, mean speed, and the standard deviation of lane position (SDLP). Results indicated that young drivers outperformed older drivers in both n-back accuracy and DRT detection speed. Increasing cognitive load significantly increased DRT response times and miss rates, particularly during the more demanding 2-back task. Regarding driving behavior, older drivers reduced their speed significantly during the 2-back task, suggesting compensatory behavior. SDLP decreased during n-back tasks only when the DRT was absent, indicating that cognitive load narrows visual attention toward the road center unless further divided by detection tasks. Notably, DRT performance was better at night than during the day, and SDLP was higher at night, especially when the DRT was present. Older drivers exhibited higher SDLP than young drivers when performing the DRT. The findings highlight that cognitive distraction reduces peripheral awareness and alters steering behavior, with older drivers showing greater vulnerability in lane keeping under dual-task conditions. The improved DRT performance at night suggests that drivers may allocate more attentional resources to the driving task under low-visibility conditions, potentially mitigating some effects of cognitive load. These results underscore the importance of considering lighting conditions and age in assessing the safety risks of cognitively demanding secondary tasks, such as hands-free phone use, and inform strategies for managing driver distraction in varying environmental contexts.
Key finding
Increasing cognitive load through an auditory n-back task significantly increased response times to peripheral visual stimuli and reduced lateral lane deviation, with young drivers outperforming older drivers on both cognitive and detection tasks.
Methodology
simulator
Sample size: 37
Provenance
The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed. Discovered via scout_discovery on 2026-05-08.
| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | partial | scout | — | — | 2 | 2026-05-08 |
| archive | success | canonical_url | — | — | 4 | 2026-06-06 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 3 | 2026-06-10 |
| clean | success | clean | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-07 |
| chunk | success | chunk | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-07 |
| embed | success | embed | Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-8B | — | 1 | 2026-06-07 |
| enrich | failed | — | — | — | 4 | 2026-07-02 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 15 | 2026-06-11 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.
Topics
Ranked by relevance to this paper. Hover a topic for its definition.
- mental demand
- workload measurement
- cognitive capacity variation
- dual task performance
- dark adaptation mesopic
- cognitive
Information type
What kind of knowledge this paper contributes, grouped by family — independent of topic (what it is about) and method (how it was studied).
- Empirical Findings: behavioral performance data
- Methodological Resource: measurement protocol
- Theoretical Contribution: theory or model