Effect of auditory test on the driving performance of elderly drivers

Abstract

    To reduce the traffic accidents by the elderly, it is desirable to develop a driver assistance system for the elderly. In this paper, as an additional task, paced auditory serial addition test (PASAT), a calculation task given by voice, was imposed on drivers to examine the effect of the auditory task on the driving performance. By analyzing the steering data of the vehicle, the effect of auditory task on the driving performance of elderly was investigated. The results showed that the smoothness of steering operations worsened while the PASAT was imposed on drivers.