Performance Male and Female Drivers in Drowsiness System Based on Psychomotor Vigilance Task Test

Theresia Br. Pasaribu, Novie; ., Ratnadewi; Prijono, Agus; Pramono Adhie, Roy; Halim, Winda; Maini Heryanto, Rainisa · 2018 · Crossref

DOI: 10.14419/ijet.v7i2.13.16937

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Summary

This study investigates gender differences in driver performance under conditions of induced mental fatigue, specifically focusing on drowsiness and sustained attention. Motivated by the safety risks associated with long-distance, monotonous driving and existing literature suggesting potential gender disparities in driving skills, the research aims to determine whether male and female drivers exhibit different psychomotor vigilance levels when fatigued. The authors utilize the Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT), a standard metric for measuring reaction time and alertness, combined with an Arithmetic Stress Test to simulate fatigue. The experimental design involved 17 healthy drivers aged 19–27, comprising 13 males and 4 females. Participants underwent a 97-minute laboratory session using a driving simulator. The protocol consisted of five PVT sessions, each lasting five minutes, interspersed with driving periods and a 30-minute Arithmetic Stress Test designed to induce mental fatigue. Reaction times were recorded in milliseconds, with values under 100 ms considered false starts and those over 500 ms classified as lapses indicating inattention. The primary data analysis employed independent t-tests to compare mean PVT scores between genders across all five sessions, while a separate t-test analyzed the number of collisions recorded during the driving segments. The results indicated no statistically significant difference in psychomotor vigilance performance between male and female drivers. For all five PVT sessions, the calculated t-statistics were smaller than the critical two-tail values (2.13), leading to the failure to reject the null hypothesis that male and female PVT performances are equal. This suggests that gender does not significantly affect the ability to maintain sustained attention or reaction speed under the tested fatigue conditions. However, a distinct difference was observed in driving safety outcomes. The analysis of collision data revealed a t-statistic of 2.56, which exceeded the critical one-tail value of 1.75. Consequently, the study rejected the null hypothesis for collisions, concluding that male drivers had a significantly lower number of collisions compared to female drivers during the simulated driving tasks. The study concludes that while male and female drivers demonstrate equivalent psychomotor vigilance and resistance to mental fatigue as measured by PVT, male drivers exhibited fewer collisions in the simulator environment. These findings suggest that while basic alertness mechanisms may not differ by gender, other factors influencing driving safety and collision rates may vary. The research contributes to the understanding of driver fatigue detection systems by validating that PVT performance is consistent across genders, though it highlights a disparity in actual driving error rates that warrants further investigation.

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Topics

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• drowsiness detection algorithms
• sex gender

Information type

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• Empirical Findings: behavioral performance data, physiological data
• Methodological Resource: validation psychometrics