Psychology 409a, November 27, 2006

Driving Skill

By Melissa Mills

Instructions for this activity are found at:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy25/g25-oral1.htm
Instructor: Dr. Leon James

Peter Rothe, editor (2002). Driving Lessons: Exploring Systems That Make Traffic Safer. (Edmonton: University Of Alberta Press). Reviewing pgs. 211-230

I. Skill

A. A learned ability to perform some task effectively and efficiently.

B. Traditionally: skills involve simple physical manipulations of tools and materials toward objective products

1. Perceptual motor skills

C. Modern: broadens the traditional definition to view mental processes and abilities as being trainable skills

D. Human re-engineering: Broaden definition again. Every human trait is now view as trainable.

1. Social skills, communication skills, thinking skills, etc…

II. Driving is a Skill

A. Traditional perspective: Driving is a complex skill. If you are not an experienced driver, driving might seem simple. Need practice so skills become automatic

B. Modern perspective: Driving skills involve mental activity needed to maintain situational awareness and manage vehicle systems in wide range of conditions.

C. Human re-engineering perspective: more than driving skill is involved in driver skill. Includes social, consumer, etc… skills

D. Driving skill exists in different degrees

III. Whole Driver

A. Many task demands need to be met to operate a motor vehicle safely.

1. Jaime McKnight in his task analysis labeled 1500 tasks required while driving.

IV. Young, Unexperienced Drivers

A. Failures: Keepin proper lane, yield right of way, running off road, speeding, driving on the wrong side of road, not obeying traffic signs, reckless, overtaking, inattentiveness, fatigue and poor equipment.

B. In a European study, young drivers are over represented in a few types of crashes: speeding, loss of control and nighttime.

C. Experienced drivers have important skill advantages

1. They are better able to control and distribute attention, automate and integrate various psychomotor control skills, extract full info from the environment, detect and recognize hazards and make driving decisions quickly under pressure.

D. Have 8 individual traits related to excessive risk of collision for young drivers.

1. Steering control, speed control, parallel processing/multi tasking, visual search/scan, hazard detection, risk assessment, decision making, risky lifestyle and risk taking.

V. Taxonomic Model of Driving and Driver Skills

A. Aid in developing new approaches to driver education.

B. Lonero emphasized importance of drivers cognitive skills among a number of distinct “educable driver qualities”

C. Sensory, mental and psychomotor functions

D. Categories of Taxonomy

1. Knowledge: information stored in LTM and STM.

a. Includes rules and principles, scripts, schemata, performance routines, recognition templates and expectations.

b. Builds continuously through instruction and experience.

c. Does not create motivation for behavior and ineffective traditional safety education program.

d. Cognitive and memory

e. Provides the background against which all the perceptual and cognitive functions take place.

2. Attention: stages of vigilance, alertness and mental arousal

a. internal predisposition to interact with the environment

b. Directs searching , scanning and noticing

c. Automatic and controllable

d. Cognitive and perceptual.

e. Controlling, dividing and switching focus.

f. Real time management of cognitive resources and perceptual channel capacity, screening out distractions.

3. Detection: searching, scanning and noticing things that are relevant.

a. Also receives information from other senses and senses detect change.

b. Sensor and pre-attentional

c. Fixation, formation of images

d. Identifies changes in the environment that may need identification and evaluation.

4. Perception: Mental organizing and processing of patterns of data from the senses, turning data into information.

a. Recognition and identification of potential hazards.

b. Sensory and Cognitive

c. Processing images to extract meaning and produce schemata.

d. Creates awareness and understanding of constantly changing situations.

5. Evaluation: perceptual information is outputted to evaluate for opportunities and risks.

a. Cognitive and affective

b. Risk analysis of situation to produce outcome expectations, attributions

c. Estimates consequences and probabilities of alternative actions in the situation.

d. Influenced by knowledge.

e. Complex cognitive skills are affected by impairments like alcohol and fatigue.

6. Decisions: after given a particular situation evaluation, final authority for action or inaction is with the drivers’ decision skill.

a. Cognitive and affective

b. Matching options and motives.

c. Selects optimal response: risk acceptance or rejection.

d. Selecting and timing responses to optimize driver’s personal benefit: cost equations.

7. Motor Skill

a. Perceptual-motor

b. Integrating control actions

c. Execution of intended maneuvers

8. Imagination:

a. Cognitive

b. Safety margin, anticipatory responses

c. Time, speed and space choices

d. Amount of safety margin that is chosen and maintained.

9. Motivations: internal affective or emotional force compelling the individual to seek satisfaction of personal needs.

a. Affective and social

b. Transient objectives, drives, needs, emotions

c. Prioritizes and balances a large and often conflicting set of goals and values

10. Responsibility: driver’s top cognitive management. A rational executive process focused on the highest level goals and values.

a. Cognitive, affective and cultural

b. Executive policy skills

c. Chooses goals and values, directs self monitoring, and consistently controls transient states.