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

Strayer, David L. · 2017 ·

archive: archived pipeline: cataloged verified

Get this paper ↗ (full text — opens at the source; we link to it, we don't host it)

Summary

This study investigates how multitasking, specifically talking on a cell phone while driving, impairs drivers' self-awareness of their own performance deficits. The research addresses a critical public safety issue: while cell phone use is known to increase crash risk and driving errors, many drivers remain overconfident in their ability to multitask safely. The authors hypothesize that the attentional demands of multitasking diminish the monitoring processes essential for self-regulation and self-knowledge, leading drivers to be unaware of their poor performance and thus unable to correct it or accurately assess their capabilities. To test this, 77 undergraduate participants were randomly assigned to drive on a high-fidelity simulator either while talking on a hands-free cell phone or without distraction. An experimenter recorded actual driving errors, which were categorized as "serious" (e.g., running red lights, swerving into oncoming lanes) or "minor" (e.g., failing to signal). After the drive, participants rated the safeness of their driving, estimated the number of errors they made, and assessed their general confidence in their ability to drive safely while distracted. The results confirmed that cell phone use significantly increased the number of serious driving errors compared to the no-phone condition. Crucially, the study found a dissociation between actual performance and self-assessment based on condition. Participants in the no-phone condition showed a negative correlation between their actual serious errors and their self-assessments of 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 those who did not use phones. The findings indicate that cell phone use not only degrades driving performance but also blinds drivers to the extent of that degradation. Because their self-assessments are not grounded in actual performance data, cell phone users maintain an illusion of competence, which likely perpetuates risky multitasking behavior. The authors conclude that multitasking diminishes the self-awareness necessary for self-regulation, suggesting that drivers’ self-reports of their performance while distracted should be viewed with skepticism. This lack of awareness contributes to the persistence of overconfidence and the continued prevalence of dangerous driving behaviors despite known risks.

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.

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

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: observational prevalence
• Theoretical Contribution: theory or model