Citation

Groeger JA, Whelan MI, Senserrick TM, Triggs TJ. Proc. Australas. Road Safety Res. Policing Educ. Conf. 2002; 6(1): 91-98.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2002, copyright holder varies, Publisher Monash University)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Two aspects of drivers' situation awareness are investigated here: drivers' immediate memory of the vehicles in front of them, and drivers predictions of where those vehicles would be after some time has elapsed. Novice and experienced drivers watched briefly presented photographs of, or films of moving, normal traffic scenes. Immediately afterwards, participants were asked to specify the location of the vehicles they saw or to predict where those vehicles would be after 5 seconds of further travel on a structured grid. Drivers were tested when able to devote their attention wholly to the situation awareness tasks, and when dividing their attention between the situation awareness tasks and a concurrent distracting task. Results indicate that drivers' memory for their current environment is relatively poor, and predictions made on the basis of such memories are inaccurate. The implications for current understanding of hazard perception are discussed.