Effect of Attentional Disengagement on Driver’s habituation During Driving on an Expressway

Abstract

This study aims to demonstrate that driver’s detection of a fallen object on an expressway can be improved by attentional disengagement. Driver’s detection of a target often delays due to vigilance decrement, which is deterioration in the ability to keep attention to a target over a long period of time. Previous studies have suggested that instantaneous attentional disengagement from a target relieves vigilance decrement. It is considered that driver’s attention tends to be located on a particular point in front for a long time which could cause vigilance decrement resulting in the delay in detection of a fallen object on an expressway. This study conducts a selective adaptation task to show that attentional disengagement relieves vigilance decrement during driving on an expressway. The response time of the disengaged condition was observed to be shorter than the engaged condition. This result suggested that attentional disengagement led to improve the driver’s detection of a fallen object during driving on an expressway.