A recent study by Dr Gabriel Tillman (former RHD student in the School
of Psychology, University of Newcastle; currently at Vanderbilt) and colleagues
examined cognitive workload in drivers and passengers.
The study appeared in the journal Attention, Perception and
Psychophysics, and gained traction via the Psychonomic Society's blog, in an
article by Cassandra Jacobs. In a nut shell, researchers Gabriel Tillman, David
Strayer, Ami Eidels, and Andrew Heathcote conducted a study looking at the
impact of high cognitive load across three conditions: driving without
distractions, driving and holding a conversation with a hands-free mobile
phone, and driving and holding a conversation with a passenger. During the
driving session, participants were presented with a peripheral red light and
had to respond to it as quickly as possible by pressing a micro switch
(the Detection Response Task, DRT).
The researchers analysed the time to detect the light and found
participants were substantially slower to respond to the light when they were
engaged in conversation with another person, in both the hands-free
mobile-phone case as well as when talking to a passenger. In addition, and in
the tradition of the Newcastle Cognition Lab, the researchers fit the data to a
computational model of choice and response time. The full results are detailed
in the AP&P article, here.
Dr. Gabriel Tillman
