Hands-free phones are often viewed as the solution to eliminating hazards while driving. They stop people holding onto a device and the steering wheel at the same time for a start. But new research, by psychologists at The Open University and the University of Sussex found that alarm\u00a0bells should ring about these\u00a0devices too. They found that driving while talking on a hands-free phone can be just as distracting as talking on a hand-held mobile phone.<\/p>\n
The study, published in the Transportation Research<\/a>\u00a0journal, found that drivers having conversations which sparked their visual imagination detected fewer road hazards than those who didn\u2019t.\u00a0 They also focused on a smaller area of the road ahead of them and failed to see hazards, even when they looked directly at them. This shows the risks of even hands-free phone conversations.<\/p>\n The research, carried out by a collaboration between Dr Gemma Briggs<\/a>, Psychology Lecturer at the OU and Dr Graham Hole<\/a>, Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Sussex, found that conversations may use more of the brain\u2019s visual processing resources than previously understood.\u00a0 Having a conversation which requires the driver to use their visual imagination creates competition for the brain\u2019s processing capacity, which results in drivers missing road hazards that they might otherwise have spotted.<\/p>\n Dr Briggs said the research looked at data which reveals those on a hands-free phone are four times more likely to be involved in an accident and that this continues for five minutes after the call has ended.<\/p>\n “This competition for shared resources leads to decreased driving performance, to the extent that dual tasking drivers can look at but fail to see hazards even when they\u2019re presented directly ahead of them. For those hazards which were detected, dual tasking participants took around twice as long to react to them than undistracted participants.”<\/p>\n We found conversations that required someone to create mental imagery were more distracting than conversations that did not.<\/p>\n We measured distractions in terms of the hazards people spotted and their reaction to them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The study, which tracked eye movements, also found that drivers who were distracted suffered from \u201cvisual tunnelling”. They tended to focus their eyes on a small central region directly ahead of them.\u00a0 This led them to miss hazards in their peripheral vision. Undistracted participants\u2019 eye movements ranged over a much wider area.<\/p>\n Dr Briggs\u00a0said conversations with a passenger inside the car are qualatitively different because they have a shared environment with you.<\/p>\n “They can see what you can see and therefore they can regulate their conversation, dependent on your driving demands. They may even help you if something particularly demanding happens.<\/p>\n Someone on a mobile phone may not know that you are driving and therefore may consistently demand your attention.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The\u00a0psychologists ran two experiments in which participants performed a video-based hazard-detection task.\u00a0 In the first experiment, participants were either undistracted, or distracted by listening to sentences and deciding whether they were true or false. For half of these distracted participants, the sentences encouraged the use of visual imagery (e.g. \u201ca five pound note is the same size as a ten pound note\u201d) whereas for the other half, the sentences did not (e.g. \u201cLeap years have 366 days\u201d).<\/p>\n All of the distracted participants were slower to respond to hazards, detected fewer hazards and made more “looked but failed to see” errors, meaning their eyes focused on a hazard but they didn\u2019t actually see it. These impairments were worse for the participants who were distracted by imagery-inducing statements.<\/p>\n In the second experiment, the researchers compared undistracted participants to ones who were distracted by a different visual imagery task. This involved mentally moving around an imaginary grid in response to verbal instructions. Distracted participants were more likely to miss hazards in their peripheral vision due to the \u201cvisual tunnelling.\u201d<\/p>\nCompetition for brain capacity<\/h2>\n
Slower to respond<\/h2>\n