Effects of cell phone use on left turn across path judgments: Identifying critical informational sources and attentional resources necessary for safe driving
| dc.contributor.committeeChair | DeLucia, Patricia R. | |
| dc.contributor.committeeMember | Greenlee, Eric T | |
| dc.contributor.committeeMember | Jones, Keith S. | |
| dc.contributor.committeeMember | Klein, Martina I. | |
| dc.creator | Levulis, Samuel J. | |
| dc.creator.orcid | 0000-0001-5713-8340 | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2018-06-01T20:56:45Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2018-06-01T20:56:45Z | |
| dc.date.created | 2018-05 | |
| dc.date.issued | 2018-05 | |
| dc.date.submitted | May 2018 | |
| dc.date.updated | 2018-06-01T20:56:46Z | |
| dc.description.abstract | Twenty-two percent of crashes on U.S. roadways occur at intersections (NHTSA, 2015a). One of the most common intersection crash configurations is termed the “left turn across path/opposing direction” (LTAP/OD), in which a driver attempts to turn left across the path of a vehicle approaching from the opposite direction. An estimated 21 to 29% of LTAP/OD crashes involve driver distraction (NHTSA, 2013). Whereas the vast majority of driver distraction research has focused on the effects of cell phone conversations on operational vehicle control (e.g., lane-keeping, speed control), much less has addressed how cell phone use affects driver tactical control (e.g., overtaking maneuvers, LTAP/OD maneuvers). The current study contained four experiments: Experiments 1 and 2 were norming studies used to equate the difficulty of the cell phone task materials used in Experiments 3 and 4, respectively. Experiments 3 and 4 examined whether LTAP/OD judgments are influenced by the attentional demands of the cell phone task (spatial vs. non-spatial content, listening vs. responding), the oncoming vehicle’s distance, velocity, and size, and whether the participant passively judges whether it is safe to turn left or actively conducts the maneuver. In a driving simulator, participants judged the last safe moment to turn left in front of oncoming vehicles. In half of the trials participants performed a concurrent cell phone listening (Experiment 3) or response (Experiment 4) task. Results indicated that safety margins were affected more by a cell phone response task than a cell phone listening task, and were most negatively affected when passive participants were making judgments about oncoming motorcycles that were farther away and approaching at a slower velocity, putatively due to greater overlap in the cognitive resources demanded by the two tasks. The findings have implications for theories of perception and attention, and could inform the development of gap acceptance models and the design of future advanced driver assistance systems and automated vehicles. | |
| dc.format.mimetype | application/pdf | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/2346/73834 | |
| dc.language.iso | eng | |
| dc.rights.availability | Unrestricted. | |
| dc.subject | Driver distraction | |
| dc.subject | Cell phone use | |
| dc.subject | Driver performance | |
| dc.subject | LTAP/OD | |
| dc.subject | Time-to-contact | |
| dc.title | Effects of cell phone use on left turn across path judgments: Identifying critical informational sources and attentional resources necessary for safe driving | |
| dc.type | Dissertation | |
| dc.type.material | text | |
| thesis.degree.department | Psychology | |
| thesis.degree.discipline | Psychology - Experimental | |
| thesis.degree.grantor | Texas Tech University | |
| thesis.degree.level | Doctoral | |
| thesis.degree.name | Doctor of Philosophy |