Relationship between Allowable Task Demand while Driving and Allocation of Attentional Resources

Abstract

Simulator experiment was performed to investigate the relationship between allowable visual demands and attentional resources allocated to the driving task. We used an occlusion method changing automatically the viewing and occlusion time of road scene at pre-determined intervals. The allowable task demand was estimated based on the occlusion time reflecting the standard deviation of lateral position similar to that in normal driving. We also evaluated the amount of driver’s attentional resources available for the driving task using the amplitude of event-related potentials elicited by task-irrelevant auditory probes. The results indicate that higher allowable task demands are correlated with more attentional resources.