Effects of an active visuomotor steering task on covert attention

Tuhkanen, Samuel; Pekkanen, Jami; Lehtonen, Esko; Lappi, Otto · 2019 · Crossref

DOI: 10.16910/jemr.12.3.1

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Summary

This study investigates how active visuomotor steering and complex visual stimuli affect covert attention, specifically the ability to detect peripheral targets without shifting gaze. While eye-tracking research has extensively documented overt gaze strategies in driving, it offers limited insight into covert attention, which is critical for monitoring the periphery during dynamic tasks. The authors adapted the Posner cue paradigm to a driving simulator to determine whether active steering and optic flow bias the distribution of covert attention toward specific regions of the visual field. The experiment involved 26 participants who performed a peripheral target detection task while maintaining fixation on a central circle. Two conditions were compared: a steering task, where participants actively controlled a virtual car along a winding road at 80 km/h, and a control task, where the car drove on autopilot without a visible road scene. In both conditions, participants detected "E" shaped targets appearing in four radial positions around the fixation point. The study analyzed detection performance on straight segments and during steady-state cornering in bends. Data were collected using a head-mounted eye tracker, and trials where gaze deviated from the fixation area were excluded. Results indicated that active steering and the complex visual scene significantly impaired covert attention during cornering. Detection performance in bends was significantly lower in the steering task (76.8%) compared to the control task (81.7%). On straight segments, no significant difference was observed between conditions. Within the steering task, targets located lower in the visual field were discriminated more slowly than those at the level of the fixation circle. Contrary to some theoretical expectations, the study did not find enhanced discriminability for targets located on the road or in the direction of the bend. Specifically, detection of targets in the lower-opposite position was significantly more impaired in the steering task than in the higher-opposite position. The findings suggest that the demands of active steering and the presence of optic flow reduce the capacity to distribute covert attention effectively, particularly during complex maneuvers like cornering. The authors propose that these effects may be driven by bottom-up biases from optic flow or top-down mechanisms related to saccade planning. This work highlights the limitations of relying solely on overt gaze metrics to understand visual attention in driving, demonstrating that covert attentional resources are constrained by the motor and perceptual demands of the task.

Key finding

Active steering and complex visual scenes impair the ability to distribute covert attention, resulting in lower peripheral target detection performance during bends compared to a control condition.

Methodology

simulator

Sample size: 26

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Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.

Topics

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• peripheral attention
• eye movements scanning
• useful field of view
• gaze based attention detection
• attention allocation
• inattentional change blindness
• perception action locomotion

Information type

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• Empirical Findings: behavioral performance data
• Methodological Resource: measurement protocol, tool software