Inhibitory Control and Peer Passengers Predict Risky Driving in Young Novice Drivers - A Simulator Study

This driving simulator study aimed to investigate (1) effects of peer passengers on a variety of risky driving measures, and (2) moderating effects of inhibitory control on these peer passenger effects. Two age groups (n = 30, 17-18 year-olds; n = 20, 21-24 year-olds) participated. Each participant completed two 28km test-drives in a medium-fidelity driving simulator. In the first drive, participants were asked to drive as they normally do. In the second drive, participants again were asked to drive as they normally do, now in the presence of a peer passenger. Measures of risky driving were: standard deviation of lateral lane position (SDLP), collisions with road hazards, speeding, and red light running. The results showed: (1) that peer presence can have negative (‘risk increasing’) but also positive (‘protective’) effects on driving performance, depending on the specific driving measure: whereas red light running increased, the number of collisions and SDLP decreased with peer passengers; (2) a moderating effect of inhibitory control on the peer passenger effect of speeding as (a) in a sub-group with low inhibitory control an increase in speeding occurred with peers, while (b) in a sub-group with high inhibitory control there was no effect of peers on speeding. This suggests that those with higher inhibitory control are more successful in resisting peer pressure

Exploring the Driving Behavior of Youth with an Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Driver Instructor Questionnaire

Youth with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) depend to a great extent on friends and family for their transportation needs. Although little research exists, Cox et al. (2012) surveyed parents/caregivers of youth with ASD (previously) attempting to learn to drive. This study serves as an extension by surveying driver instructors. Several questions queried advice for teaching youth with ASD how to drive, and for improving the current driving education to better fit the needs of youth with ASD. Furthermore, respondents were asked to indicate whether specific characteristics, often associated with ASD, have an impact on driving ability. A total of 52 driver instructors reported potential problems when teaching youth with ASD to drive. Advice for teaching youth with ASD to drive mainly focused on a need for structure, clarity, visual demonstration, practice, repetition and an individualized approach. Results however also showed that the relation between ASD and driving performance might not always be negative but can be positive. Practical implications are provided

Driving the Future: The Relation between Driving and Prospective Memory in Adults with an Autism Spectrum Disorder

Difficulties with autonomy impact several quality-of-life outcomes in people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Driving is an important step towards gaining autonomy by allowing the development and maintenance of work- and social-related contacts. Nonetheless, people with ASD depend highly on friends and family for their transportation needs. Due to the complexity of the driving task, specific ASD characteristics might interfere negatively with driving. The driving task consists of several subtasks, running in parallel. This requires the ability to switch in a smooth manner (e.g., shifting, steering, changing lanes, and keeping traffic rules into account). An additional difficulty concerns sudden changes in the traffic environment (e.g., traffic density, weather conditions). Therefore, driving is a complex goal-directed task that places high demands on perceptual, cognitive, and motor processes. The little research that exists suggests that people with ASD experience difficulties more specifically in complex driving situations, requiring multi-tasking and inducing increased cognitive load. Applied to autonomy, in order to maintain work and social contacts, it is not only necessary to handle the vehicle, but also to navigate through rural, urban, and highway traffic environments while concurrently remembering appointments and obeying a schedule. People with ASD however experience difficulties with coordinating and sequencing activities, and with planning ahead. Following this, prospective memory (PM) might interfere negatively with driving. PM is the ability to remember to carry out intended actions in the future while being engaged in other ongoing activities. Two subtypes of PM are event-based PM (EBPM) and time-based PM (TBPM). The former refers to the execution of intentions at certain events (i.e., prospective cues), the latter refers to the execution of intentions at certain times. This driving simulator study aims to investigate PM (i.e., EBPM and TBPM) as an underlying mechanism of driving in adults with ASD. To this end, a pc-based ‘virtual reality (VR) city task’ was translated to a driving simulator environment. The influence of several cognitive abilities (e.g., working memory, planning), from which the importance is indicated in previous literature, is also investigated. Data collection is ongoing and will be finished in December. The analyses are planned in January

The developmental pattern of stimulus and response interference in a color-object Stroop task: an ERP study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Several studies have shown that Stroop interference is stronger in children than in adults. However, in a standard Stroop paradigm, stimulus interference and response interference are confounded. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether interference at the stimulus level and the response level are subject to distinct maturational patterns across childhood. Three groups of children (6–7 year-olds, 8–9 year-olds, and 10–12 year-olds) and a group of adults performed a manual Color-Object Stroop designed to disentangle stimulus interference and response interference. This was accomplished by comparing three trial types. In congruent (C) trials there was no interference. In stimulus incongruent (SI) trials there was only stimulus interference. In response incongruent (RI) trials there was stimulus interference and response interference. Stimulus interference and response interference were measured by a comparison of SI with C, and RI with SI trials, respectively. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured to study the temporal dynamics of these processes of interference.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>There was no behavioral evidence for stimulus interference in any of the groups, but in 6–7 year-old children ERPs in the SI condition in comparison with the C condition showed an occipital P1-reduction (80–140 ms) and a widely distributed amplitude enhancement of a negative component followed by an amplitude reduction of a positive component (400–560 ms). For response interference, all groups showed a comparable reaction time (RT) delay, but children made more errors than adults. ERPs in the RI condition in comparison with the SI condition showed an amplitude reduction of a positive component over lateral parietal (-occipital) sites in 10–12 year-olds and adults (300–540 ms), and a widely distributed amplitude enhancement of a positive component in all age groups (680–960 ms). The size of the enhancement correlated positively with the RT response interference effect.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Although processes of stimulus interference control as measured with the color-object Stroop task seem to reach mature levels relatively early in childhood (6–7 years), development of response interference control appears to continue into late adolescence as 10–12 year-olds were still more susceptible to errors of response interference than adults.</p

Effect of a working memory training on aspects of cognitive ability and driving ability of older drivers: Merits of an adaptive training over a non-adaptive training

Working memory (WM), important for driving, declines with age. It was investigated whether a WM training would enhance aspects of cognitive ability and driving ability of older drivers. Thirty-eight drivers (mean age 71 years) were randomly assigned to an adaptive WM training (n = 19) or a non-adaptive WM training (n = 19). In addition, a no-training control group was collected (n = 18). During the pre-test and post-test, aspects of cognitive ability and driving ability were assessed. In between, participants in" the adaptive training group and the non-adaptive training group conducted a WM" training. We hypothesized that improvement on aspects of cognitive ability and driving ability will be largest in the adaptive training group, smaller in the non-adaptive training group and only minimal in the no-training control group. Results indicated that this hypothesis was confirmed for a measure of WM. For two driving measures (i.e., driving speed and reaction to stop signs), group means were in the expected direction, but results were only marginally significant. In addition, there were general test-retest effects for a measure of attention and one driving measure (i.e., gap acceptance). These results are in line with previous cognitive training studies with older people indicating training can improve performance on the trained tasks, but transfer to untrained tasks is only limited. Suggestions for future research are offered