Cell phone use diminishes self-awareness of the adverse effects of cell phone use on driving.

Sanbonmatsu, David M.; Strayer, David L.; Behrends, Arwen A.; Moore, Shannon M. · 2017 · ROSA P / University Transportation Centers Program (U.S.)

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Summary

This study investigates how multitasking, specifically talking on a cell phone while driving, impairs self-awareness and performance monitoring. The authors posit that monitoring one’s own behavior is essential for self-regulation and correcting errors. However, multitasking divides attention, potentially causing drivers to remain unaware of their deteriorating performance. This lack of self-awareness may sustain overconfidence in one’s ability to drive safely while distracted, a significant public safety concern given the high prevalence of cell phone use behind the wheel. To test this hypothesis, 77 undergraduate participants were randomly assigned to either a cell phone condition or a no-cell-phone condition. Participants drove a high-fidelity simulator (DriveSafety™ DS-600) through an 8.2-kilometer urban course containing 12 hazardous scenarios requiring specific traffic law compliance. An experimenter recorded actual driving errors, which were categorized as "minor" (e.g., speeding, failing to signal) or "serious" (e.g., running red lights, swerving into oncoming lanes) based on severity ratings from an independent survey. Immediately after driving, participants rated their perceived driving safeness and performance, attempted to recall the specific errors they made, and assessed their general confidence in their ability to drive safely while distracted. The results demonstrated that cell phone use significantly increased the number of serious driving errors compared to the no-cell-phone condition, though minor errors did not differ. Crucially, the study found a dissociation between actual performance and self-assessment in the cell phone group. Participants who did not use a cell phone showed a negative correlation between their actual serious errors and their self-assessed driving safety; those who made more errors rated their driving as less safe. In contrast, cell phone users’ self-assessments of driving safety were uncorrelated with their actual errors. Furthermore, cell phone users’ memory of their errors was significantly less accurate than that of non-users. Despite making more serious errors, cell phone users reported similar levels of confidence in their ability to drive safely while distracted as non-users, and their confidence was not grounded in their actual performance metrics. The findings indicate that cell phone use diminishes not only driving safety but also the driver’s awareness of that diminished safety. Because multitasking obstructs self-monitoring, drivers fail to recognize their errors and adjust their behavior accordingly. This impaired self-awareness allows overconfidence to persist despite poor performance, suggesting that drivers’ self-reports of their capabilities are unreliable when distracted. The study highlights a critical mechanism behind risky driving behaviors: the inability to accurately assess one’s own performance due to divided attention.

Key finding

Cell phone users made significantly more serious driving errors than non-users, yet their self-assessments of driving safety were uncorrelated with their actual error rates, whereas non-users' self-assessments were negatively correlated with their errors.

Methodology

simulator

Sample size: 77

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 bulk_ingest_rosap on 2026-05-23 (6 acquisition events logged).

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.

• mobile phones
• situational awareness
• cognitive
• decision making risk perception
• mind wandering
• distraction laws

Information type

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• Empirical Findings: observational prevalence
• Theoretical Contribution: theory or model