Development of the Evaluation Method of Drivers' Visuomotor Coordination Function

―Relationship between Driver's Visuomotor Coordination Function and Driving Skill―

Abstract

Skills for tool use, including driving, are supported by two visuomotor abilities; the ability to model the relationship between an action and its consequences before execution (internal modeling ability), and the ability to plan a trajectory linking a specific point of an effector to that of a target (effector navigation ability). Ninety-nine young and ninety-eight older adults participated in two visuomotor tracking tasks for measuring these abilities. Based on task performance, participants were divided into two x two cells to assess types of clumsiness: Efficient internal model and deficient internal model crossed orthogonally with good and poor effector navigation. Functional differences between these four types of clumsiness are discussed.