The Analysis of Attentional Disengagement Effect on Driver's Cognition of Road Gradient at Sag Sections

Abstract

This study investigates the effect on vigilance decrement on driver's cognition of road gradient at sag sections. Previous research has suggested that traffic congestion at sag sections was dependent upon that the deceleration of the vehicle driven without notice the change in road gradient at sag section propagates to followers. In psychology, persons miss recognizing the change in the target over time because of vigilance decrement, that is deterioration in the ability to remain attention for change of target over time and it is effective to avoid to maintain attention over prolonged periods time in order to reduce vigilance decrement. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine whether the disengagement of attention to a particular field improve the cognition of change in road gradient based on selective adaptation task. As the result, in the reaction time indicated the smoothness of the cognitive process, it was possible that attentional disengagement was caused the reduction of vigilance decrement. These results suggested that it led to improve the driver's cognition of road gradient to disengage attention in proper time.