Driver Distraction: A Review of Scientific Literature
This report presents the synthesised results of reviews of evidence-based research conducted to address the following four research questions:
- How does distraction affect safety-related driving performance? Specifically, what does research show about the relationship between cognitive load and safety-related driving performance, including the impact of cognitive load caused by secondary tasks involving interaction with technologies such as (i) mobile phones (handheld or handsfree), (ii) in-built vehicle infotainment systems or (iii) wearable technologies (such as smart watches and smart glasses/googles)?
- What does research show about the extent to which driver distraction contributes to road trauma in Australia? What does research show about the impact of driver distraction on crash risk?
- What does research show about the physiological symptoms and presentations of driver distraction? Are these able to be accurately identified and measured?
a) Eye-tracking measures: gaze direction, gaze fixation and percentage of eyelid closure (known as PERCLOS).
b) Cognitive load and stress response measures: electroencephalogram (EEG, detecting electrical brain activity), galvanic skin response (detecting electrical resistance of the skin to measure response to emotional stress), and heart rate. A widely used non-physiological measure of cognitive load, the Detection Response Task (DRT), was also reviewed. - What guidelines have been developed to reduce any negative impact of human-machine interface (HMI) for in-vehicle technologies on driver performance?