What attracts attention when driving?

Abstract

Twenty-five observers were asked to report what attracted their attention while driving along a 21·9 km route through a suburban district. A second group of equal size made similar reports in the laboratory while watching a movie film of the same route. The results obtained from the laboratory trial closely parallelled those obtained in the field and it is concluded that laboratory studies using a movie simulation provide a satisfactory means of studying the distribution of attention using a concurrent verbal report technique. It is noted that the absence of a driving task has no substantial effect on attentive behaviour suggesting that the visual information presented by the movie film is sufficient to generate attentive processes characterstic of driving. It is found that advertising attracts a good proportion of attention but in those sections of the route where there was little advertising attention was directed to an even greater extent to other objects not related to driving. It seems that some 30 to 50% of attention is given to such objects, perhaps reflecting the spare capacity of the observers, and it does not follow that restriction of advertising would result in more attention being given to driving-related objects. About 15 to 20% of attention is given to traffic control devices which is not sufficient to ensure that all or even most traffic control devices are noticed. Consideration is given to what action could be taken to increase the chance of traffic control devices attracting attention.