Title:

Defining, Investigating and Supporting Anticipatory Driving - A Systematic Investigation of the Competence to Predict Traffic

Issue Date: Nov-2015
Abstract (summary): Driving research shows safety and economic benefits of anticipatory competence. While the literature recognizes the notion of anticipation, it has not yet operationalized the construct. This dissertation addresses this gap by presenting a systematic investigation of anticipation in driving. It starts by defining anticipation as a competence relying on the conscious perception of visual cues and their cognitive processing. Two driving simulator studies then investigate the ability of novice and experienced drivers to anticipate conflicts in stereotypical scenarios. The first experiment shows the feasibility of identifying anticipation through the surrogate measure of pre-event actions relative to a conflict event, and confirms the hypothesis that experienced drivers exhibit these actions more often. This experiment supports an information-processing model of anticipation. The model suggests two crucial steps for the facilitation of anticipatory competence: (1) the conscious perception of appropriate cues that serve as indicators for the traffic scenario, and (2) efficient cognitive processing of those cues for a correct situational assessment. The second experiment investigates the effect of two interfaces designed to aid these steps. The attentional interface aids only the perception of cues and is hypothesized to yield larger benefits for experienced drivers who do not struggle with the interpretation of traffic. The interpretational interface supports both steps and is hypothesized to improve particularly novice driversâ competence in interpreting traffic. Contrary to these hypotheses, results show similar improvements in anticipation for both interfaces across all participants, although fewer and shorter glances towards the attentional interface suggest that it is preferable from the perspective of driver distraction. This dissertation extends the formerly vague concept of anticipation by defining and operationalizing it as a construct, identifying anticipatory actions, demonstrating that driver experience predicts anticipatory competence, and suggesting aids to support anticipation. These advances promote anticipation as a viable construct for future driver behaviour research.
Content Type: Thesis

Permanent link

https://hdl.handle.net/1807/79728

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