Age-Related Effects of Executive Function on Takeover Performance: A Simulator Study in Automated Driving
DOI: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-936603/v1
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Summary
This study investigates the relationship between age-related declines in executive function (EF) and takeover performance in highly automated vehicles (HAVs). With the aging population increasing the number of elderly drivers, understanding how cognitive factors influence the ability to regain control after a takeover request (TOR) is critical for safety. While previous research established that non-driving related tasks (NDRTs) and age negatively impact takeover performance, this study specifically examines how underlying EF components—updating, inhibition, and shifting—correlate with driving stability during these transitions. The researchers conducted a simulator study with 70 licensed drivers: 35 young adults (mean age 27.8) and 35 elderly drivers (mean age 72.8). Participants first completed computerized cognitive tasks to assess EF components: an n-back task for updating, a Simon task for inhibition, and a task-switching paradigm for shifting. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to extract latent EF components from these performance metrics. Subsequently, participants performed a simulated driving task involving a lane change after a TOR, with and without an auditory NDRT. Takeover performance was measured using the standard deviation of the steering wheel angle (sdSteer) to assess lateral stability and time-to-collision (TTC) to assess longitudinal safety. Results indicated that elderly participants exhibited significantly lower EF abilities, particularly in updating and shifting, compared to younger drivers. In terms of driving performance, elderly drivers demonstrated significantly less lateral stability (higher sdSteer) than younger drivers. Engagement in NDRT also increased sdSteer for all participants, indicating reduced stability. Regarding TTC, no significant age difference was found, but NDRT engagement led to marginally longer TTCs, suggesting more conservative braking behavior. Crucially, the study found significant correlations between EF components and lateral stability. Specifically, better updating accuracy correlated with lower sdSteer when no NDRT was present, while better shifting ability (lower switch cost) correlated with lower sdSteer both with and without NDRT. No significant correlations were found between EF components and TTC. The findings highlight that specific executive functions, particularly mental shifting and working memory updating, are key determinants of lateral driving stability during takeover maneuvers. The lack of correlation with inhibition suggests that the specific tasks used or the nature of the takeover scenario may not heavily rely on suppressing dominant responses. These results imply that driver screening tests for HAVs should focus on assessing shifting and updating abilities rather than relying solely on chronological age. Furthermore, the study suggests that human-machine interface designs could be optimized to support elderly drivers by accounting for their specific cognitive limitations in task switching and information updating.
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.
| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | Crossref | — | — | 1 | 2026-08-09 |
| archive | success | canonical_url | — | — | 1 | 2026-08-09 |
| extract | success | pdftotext | — | — | 4 | 2026-08-10 |
| clean | success | clean | — | — | 2 | 2026-08-10 |
| chunk | success | chunk | — | — | 2 | 2026-08-10 |
| embed | success | embed | Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-8B | — | 2 | 2026-08-10 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-08-09 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-nvidia | summ-v5 | 2 | 2026-08-10 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 17 | 2026-08-11 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 2 | 2026-08-10 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-nvidia on 2026-08-10; verification: verified.
Topics
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- cognitive capacity variation
- takeover transitions
- manual
- cognitive impairment
- mci dementia driving
- useful field of view
Information type
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- Empirical Findings: behavioral performance data
- Methodological Resource: measurement protocol
- Theoretical Contribution: computational model