Using Eye Movements To Evaluate Effects of Driver Age on Risk Perception in a Driving Simulator

TLDR

Novice 16‑year‑old drivers with ≤6 months of experience exhibit the highest crash rates, a phenomenon previously linked to risk taking or poor psychomotor skills, but more recently attributed to their limited ability to acquire and assess information in risky situations. The study evaluates the hypothesis that novice drivers’ high crash rates stem from limited information acquisition by recording eye movements of 72 participants across 16 risky scenarios in a simulator, with the aim of developing PC‑based training modules to help novices recognize risks before encountering them. Eye‑tracking data were collected from 72 drivers (24 novice, 24 younger, 24 older) as they navigated 16 risky scenarios in an advanced driving simulator. Significant age‑.

Abstract

Novice drivers (16-year-olds with < or = 6 months' driving experience) have the highest crash involvement rates per 100 million vehicle miles (161 million vehicle km). In the past, this was attributed to greater risk taking or poorly developed psychomotor skills. More recently, however, their high crash involvement rate has been hypothesized to be attributable largely to their relative inability to acquire and assess information in inherently risky situations. The current study seeks to evaluate this hypothesis by recording eye movements while 72 participants (24 novice drivers, 24 younger drivers, and 24 older drivers) drove through 16 risky scenarios in an advanced driving simulator. There were significant age-related differences in driver scanning behavior, consistent with the hypothesis that novice drivers' scanning patterns reflect their failure to acquire information about potential risks and their consequent failure to deal with these risks. Actual or potential applications of this research include modification of these scenarios for display on a PC as a basis for a training module that would enable novice drivers to recognize risky scenarios before they encounter them on the road, in the hope of reducing their high fatality rate.