Guilt and Shame of What Might Have Been in Optimistic Offender Drivers

Habitual offender drivers are required to recover points lost on their driving license by attending reeducation courses, an experience that may, upon reflection of the incident in question, induce feelings of guilt or shame for the infractions they committed. A simulated driving task studied optimistic offender drivers to analyze the extent to which the controllability of the situational context influenced their use of internal and external factors in counterfactual thoughts and emotions such as guilt and shame. The study involved 160 drivers, of whom 54 were categorized as repeat offender drivers while 106 drivers attended courses for advanced professional driving licenses. The participants drove along a route in a driving simulator, which had been previously adjusted for the difficulty to generate a perception of high or low control. Based on the outcome obtained by the participants in this stage, each driver had to report which resources they required to improve their outcomes. Different factor ANOVAs were used to analyze our findings. The results indicated that optimistic offenders, unlike other groups (i.e., optimistic non-offender and pessimistic non-offender), thought that their results could have been better if external factors had been present (i.e., upward counterfactuals), both under conditions of high and low control. They believed their results would have been worse had it not been for their internal resources (i.e., downward counterfactuals), especially under conditions of low control. Concerning emotions of guilt and shame, offender optimists had the lowest values in both conditions compared with the other groups. We may contend that optimistic offender drivers thought they could have obtained better outcomes if external factors had been involved. In the low control condition, they justified that if it were not for such internal skills, their results could have been worse. When they generated such thoughts, the emotions of guilt and shame were minimal.

Monotonous driving induces shifts in spatial attention as a function of handedness

Current evidence suggests that the ability to detect and react to information under lowered alertness conditions might be more impaired on the left than the right side of space. This evidence derives mainly from right-handers being assessed in computer and paper-and-pencil spatial attention tasks. However, there are suggestions that left-handers might show impairments on the opposite (right) side compared to right-handers with lowered alertness, and it is unclear whether the impairments observed in the computer tasks have any real-world implications for activities such as driving. The current study investigated the alertness and spatial attention relationship under simulated monotonous driving in left- and right-handers. Twenty left-handed and 22 right-handed participants (15 males, mean age = 23.6 years, SD = 5.0 years) were assessed on a simulated driving task (lasting approximately 60 min) to induce a time-on-task effect. The driving task involved responding to stimuli appearing at six different horizontal locations on the screen, whilst driving in a 50 km/h zone. Decreases in alertness and driving performance were evident with time-on-task in both handedness groups. We found handedness impacts reacting to lateral stimuli differently with time-on-task: right-handers reacted slower to the leftmost stimuli, while left-handers showed the opposite pattern (although not statistically significant) in the second compared to first half of the drive. Our findings support suggestions that handedness modulates the spatial attention and alertness interactions. The interactions were observed in a simulated driving task which calls for further research to understand the safety implications of these interactions for activities such as driving.

Monotonous driving induces shifts in spatial attention as a function of handedness

Current evidence suggests that the ability to detect and react to information under lowered alertness conditions might be more impaired on the left than the right side of space. This evidence derives mainly from right-handers being assessed in computer and paper-and-pencil spatial attention tasks. However, there are suggestions that left-handers might show impairments on the opposite (right) side compared to right-handers with lowered alertness, and it is unclear whether the impairments observed in the computer tasks have any real-world implications for activities such as driving. The current study investigated the alertness and spatial attention relationship under simulated monotonous driving in left- and right-handers. Twenty left-handed and 22 right-handed participants (15 males, mean age=23.6y, SD=5.0y) were assessed on a simulated driving task (lasting approximately 60 minutes) to induce a time-on-task effect. The driving task involved responding to stimuli appearing at six different horizontal locations on the screen, whilst driving in a 50km/h zone. Decreases in alertness and driving performance were evident with time-on-task in both handedness groups. We found handedness impacts reacting to lateral stimuli differently with time-on-task: right-handers reacted slower to the leftmost stimuli, while left-handers showed the opposite pattern (although not statistically significant) in the second compared to first half of the drive. Our findings support suggestions that handedness modulates the spatial attention and alertness interactions. The interactions were observed in a simulated driving task which calls for further research to understand the safety implications of these interactions for activities such as driving.

Disturbance of Information in Superior Parietal Lobe during Dual-task Interference in a Simulated Driving task

Performing a secondary task while driving causes a decline in driving performance. As an important case of dual-task interference, this may generate lethal consequences. Previous investigations on the neural correlates of dual-task interference used simple and artificial stimuli. The neural mechanism of this effect in real-world tasks such as driving, is not yet fully understood. Using fMRI, we aimed to investigate the neural underpinnings of dual-task interference in driving. Participants performed a lane change task in a simulated driving environment, along with a tone discrimination task with either short or long time onset difference (Stimulus Onset Asynchrony, SOA) between the two tasks. Behavioral results indicated a strong dual-task effect on driving reaction times. The univariate analysis of fMRI data uncovered the modulation of the HRF in the sensory, central, and motor regions of the brain across different SOA conditions. To investigate the effect of dual-task interference on the spatial pattern of brain activity in the regions involved in driving, we used multi-voxel pattern analysis (MVPA) with a linear classifier to decode driving directions. Above chance decoding accuracies were observed in visual and motor regions as well as a central superior parietal lobe (SPL). Comparing accuracies across SOAs, no effect of SOA on accuracies was observed in the visual and motor regions. The SPL region, however, showed a drop in decoding accuracy in short compared to long SOA. Also, the classification accuracy in this region was inversely correlated with participants’ reaction time in the driving task. These results suggest a direct link between the information content of the central region SPL and dual-task interference in a naturalistic simulated driving task.

The Effect of Positive and Negative Explicit Peer Influence on Adolescent Risky Decision-Making

Adolescents are susceptible to peer influence—in particular, “explicit peer influence” (EPI)—when making decisions. However, prior research has elicited mixed findings with respect to the exact effects of positive and negative EPI. Ensuring ecological validity regarding the present examination of different types of EPI, the Stoplight Game paradigm was revised by recording an adolescent in a simulated driving task in the presence of his or her classmate. A sample of 110 Chinese middle-school students (aged between 12 and 16 years old) was used to form 60 same-sex dyads that were randomly assigned to “negative EPI” (peer encourages driver to cross intersections as traffic light turns yellow), “positive EPI” (peer discourages such behaviors), and control (peer keeps quiet) conditions. The proportion of participants crossing intersections and the number of crashes were significantly higher in the negative EPI condition than in the control and positive EPI conditions. Latency with respect to crossing in the negative EPI condition was significantly longer than in the control group. These results suggest that negative EPI encourages adolescents to take risks, while positive EPI attenuates risky behavior. The effects of friendship status and gender were found to be insignificant. Further studies are warranted to elucidate the mechanisms underlying EPI.

Drivers’ Cue Utilization Predicts Cognitive Resource Consumption During a Simulated Driving Scenario

Objective: This study was designed to examine whether cue utilization differentiates drivers’ consumption of cognitive resources during a simulated driving task. Background: Outcomes from previous research have demonstrated that a general capacity for cue utilization differentiates cognitive load during novel process control tasks. However, it was previously unclear whether similar results would be demonstrated during familiar operational tasks. Method: Based on an assessment of cue utilization within a driving context, participants were classified into higher or lower cue utilization typologies. During a simulated driving task, cognitive load was assessed through changes against baseline in cerebral oxygenation in the prefrontal cortex, through eye behavior metrics (fixation rates and fixation dispersion), and through driving performance (frequency of missed traffic signals and speed exceedances). Results: Drivers with higher cue utilization recorded smaller mean fixation dispersions, smaller increases in cerebral oxygenation, and fewer missed traffic signals compared with drivers with lower cue utilization. These results suggest that compared with drivers with lower cue utilization, drivers with higher cue utilization experienced lower cognitive load during the simulated driving task while maintaining a higher level of performance. Conclusion: The results provide support for the assertion that, among qualified operators, a greater capacity for cue utilization is associated with lower cognitive load during operational tasks. Application: Cue-based assessments of driving may be beneficial in predicting performance and assisting in targeted training for recently qualified and/or older drivers.

The Role of Cue Utilization during a Simulated Driving Scenario

The present study was designed to establish whether a cue-based assessment of driving could predict cognitive load and performance during a simulated driving task. Following an assessment of cue utilization in the domain of driving, participants completed a moderate workload simulated driving task, during which cerebral oxygenation, eye behavior, and driving performance metrics were recorded. During the simulated driving task, participants with higher cue utilization recorded smaller increases in cerebral oxygenation in the prefrontal cortex relative to baseline, and smaller mean fixation dispersions, compared to participants with lower cue utilization. There were no statistically significant differences in the number of speed exceedances nor missed traffic signals based on cue utilization. These outcomes suggest that participants with higher cue utilization were able to allocate fewer cognitive resources to the simulated driving task, while maintaining an equivalent level of driving performance, compared to participants with lower cue utilization.