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Paper Title:
The Sensitivity and Bias
of Older and Younger Driver Judgments in Complex Traffic Environments
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Authors:
Dale Andrea, Brian Fildes,
Tom Triggs
Abstract:
A previous investigation
adapted a signal detection theory approach to an arrival-time task
to establish the sensitivity and bias of traffic judgements. It
was demonstrated that older drivers generally have a diminished
sensitivity to the arrival-time of approaching vehicles. The conservative
estimations of older drivers were also attenuated in response to
faster speeds. These findings were demonstrated under simplistic
single vehicle approaches of varying speed. Under the age-complexity
hypothesis, it was expected that an increase in the complexity of
the traffic environment would further reduce the sensitivity of
older driver judgements. Twenty-four older drivers (71-84 years)
and 24 younger experienced drivers (25-40 years) were presented
with digitally edited video sequences of two approaching vehicles
that disappeared at a constant distance. The three combinations
of the two vehicles' speeds were 44km/h - 72km/h, 58km/h - 72km/h,
and 58km/h - 86km/h. Order of speed presentations and lane positions
were counterbalanced. Participants indicated, for each vehicle in
turn, whether it would have reached a target line on the road when
a car horn sounded had the vehicle not disappeared. Preliminary
analyses indicate that older drivers have a significantly degraded
sensitivity to the arrival-time of two approaching vehicles in comparison
to younger drivers. As in earlier experiments, speed moderated responses.
Lower levels of sensitivity were demonstrated in the higher velocity
conditions and the conservatism of older drivers in particular,
was reduced for higher speed presentations. These results confirm
the difficulties of older drivers in response to more complex environments
and implicate speed as a moderator in traffic judgment errors.
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