Cell- Phone-Induced Driver Distraction
Inattentional blindness is being blind to stimuli you were not expected to see, or failing to recognize an unexpected stimulus in plain sight. Certain criteria must be followed in order to be classified as an event of inattenional blindness. These criteria are; the observer must fail to notice a visual object or event, the object or event must be fully visible, observers must be able to readily identify the object if they consciously perceive it, and the event must be unexpected. Talking on a cell phone is a great example of how inattentional blindness can be produced. For example, if I were engaging in a conversation on my cell phone while driving my car, I wouldn’t be fully paying attention to the road. My conversation would be distracting me from having a clear mind on the road and therefor I would be blind to certain (or many) stimuli I pass by or come across. For example, while driving and talking on my phone, I may pass a bicyclist and not even be aware of him or her, because the distraction of my phone conversation has made me create an inattentional blindness to the event.
David L. Strayer and Frank A. Drew’s conducted a research study of how the effects of driving a car while talking on a cell phone can induce driving distractions and cause inattention blindness to the event. The researchers stated in their article on page 128 “The objective of this article is to muster evidence in support of the hypothesis that cell- phone conversations impair driving by inducing a form of inattention blindness in which drivers fail to see objects in their driving environment when they are talking on a cell phone.” This study conducted four studies in which each driver used a computerized driving simulator that incorporates vehicle- dynamics, traffic-scenario, and road-surface software that provided realistic scenes and traffic condition. The studies included the focus on the conditional probability of participants recognizing objects (road signs, billboards, cars, etc.) that they had fixated on while driving. One study used single task conditions and another used dual task condition. To no surprise, these studies revealed that the participants were more than twice as likely to recognize roadway signs in single task condition than in dual task condition. The third study tested the inattention blindness hypothesis by recording on line measures of brain activity elicited by events in the driving environment. A pace car was used in which it would brake at random intervals and ERP’s (event related brain potential) were time locked to the onset of the pace car brake lights in the single and dual task condition. This study revealed drivers using cell phones fail to see information while driving because they do not encode it as well as they do when they are not distracted by the cell phone conversation. The final study (which was my favorite and most easily understood) tested two means of conversation while driving; conversation with a friend using a hands free cell phone verses a conversation with a friend seated in the car with you. 88% of the drivers who were talking with a friend in the passenger seat successfully completed the task whereas 50% of the drivers talking on a cell phone failed to complete the task. The article concludes cell phone conversations place demands on drivers and cause distraction, “Even when cell- phone drivers direct their gaze at objects in the driving environment, they often fail to “see” them because attention has been diverted to the cell-phone conversation.” (page 131)
I do believe Strayer and Drew’s results suggest that we need aggressive laws banning all cell phone conversations while operating a vehicle. I think it would be very difficult for most individuals to abide aggressive laws but feel it would make roads safer.