Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The aim of this research project was to study age-related differences in our ability to perceive and abstract
important information from the environment and to determine what physical and cognitive components are
related to this ability. Young, middle and older adults completed several questionnaires, a battery of
psychological tests, a standardized vision measure as well as several trials using a realistic driving
simulator. A concurrent memory probe technique was used to measure participant's ability to attend to
important information while driving. Their probe answers were checked against the actual simulator data
and a composite situation awareness (SA) score was created. Results confirm the hypotheses that older
adults have lower situation awareness when compared to younger and middle-aged adults. Factors that are
related to this ability include useful field of view (UFOV), perceptual speed, driving experience and self.
reported vision.
Simulator
Trials Situation
Awareness
Measure
This research used a PC-based, high fidelity, fully The first partof the study involved the development
interactive driving simulator called STISM (Systems of the concurrent memory probe. The queries used in the
Technology Interactive Simulator). The simulator provided probes were created using a cognitive task analysis with the
both immediate visual and auditory feedback to the user as aid of experienced drivers. The analysis occurred in two
well as steering torque. It contained driving hardware, a stages; the first stage used unstructuredinterviews and the
steeringwheel and brakesystem (see Figure 1). second stage used a goal-directedtask analysis. Unstructured
Three 1l-rain test trials and one 15-rain practice interviews were conducted with five experienced drivers (_M_M
simulator trial was created for this study. The test trials driving experience = 18 years). They were asked, "What
contained both moderate and high complexity conditions as would you want to know to have perfect driving
well as a one-minute low complexity scenario. The practice performance?" The goal-directed task analysis was created to
trial began with 5 minutes of low complexity followed with 5 assure that the information obtained through the unstructured
minutes of moderate complexity and 5 minutes of high interviews was complete and representative of the
complexity. Complexity was manipulated by varying the requirements needed for good driving behavior. Two
content of the scenarios. In the low complexity condition, the experienced drivers performed the goal directed task analysis.
scenario was a four-lane road with no other traffic, buildings, From these two analyses a structured questionnaire was
turns or pedestrians in the scene (see Figure 2). In the created that contained a comprehensive list of possible
moderate complexity condition, the scenario contained a important driving elements, such as weather, speed and lane
nominal number of other cars, buildings and turns (see Figure position. Twenty-five participants (_M_ age = 55.0 and M__
3). In the high complexity condition, the road was also a four- driving experience = 38.8 years) rated the importance of these
lane road, but it contained 4 times the amount of traffic, items in terms of good driving behavior. The items were
buildings, turns and intersections with crosswalks, compared to the simulator data output list and the nine highest
It was hypothesized that SA performance would ranked items that could be collected by the simulator were
decline from the moderate to the high complexity scenario and used to create the situation awareness queries (see Table 1 ).
older adults would exhibit greater decreases in performance iliii i_iii_ili}i_iii iiiiiiii!iiiiiiiiii
............
ill
iiiiiiiiii!iiiiiiiiiiiii '"_ii ii
_'?'i'i'iii_'i!iiiii'iii'
ilii _%_;_:=_i_::_::_:_:::::_::_::_:::_;:_:_:,_::_:
'i"ii"i""_"_'"i""i""iiiiiiiiii
i i;I '_i'_
• 69
5_ have a smallconditions,
complexity correlationand
withasperformance
performance inthe moderate
demands increased
_ 4_ (high complexity scenario), the correlations would also
correlated
_ 3_ increase.However, nomeasures weresignificantly
_ withperformance usingtheconcurrent memory probemeasure
I0 from the moderate complexity condition (see Table 2)
_ In the high complexity condition, four measures were
¥_g _dd_e O_der moderately correlated with probe performance: age group
(-.41), UFOV divided attention task (-.32), UFOV selective
Figure 4: Percent of Queries Answered Corre_tly By Age attention task (-.40) and driving experience (-.40) (see Table
Group. 2). However, onlythecorrelation withtheUFOVselective
attention task was significant (12= .048, one-tailed). None of
Overall, all participants answered fewer queries the other tests that were hypothesized to be predictors reached
correctly when driving in high complexity conditions than in a significant level.
the moderately complex conditions, F(1, 42) = 85.79, tZ=
.029. However, the Age Group X Complexity interaction was M__i I _GH_
not significant, F(2, 42) = .37,12= .696, with the impact of I]ii!iiiiiii_AS__,_=,_i=11,i
CO_LEX_y_I=It iCO_LEX_Ti_==i i,,]t
performance oftheolderadults,middle-aged adultsand -"
younger adults did decline from the moderate complexity to Gender : .30"_
_ -.04
the high complexity conditions. Whereas the difference in Vision -.30" -26
probe performance was in the hypothesized direction, older (se_f,report) i
adults did not experience a greater decrease in probe _Medicat -.07 .09
performance than the other two groups. [_ProNems
A significant trial effect, F (i, 42) = 5.12, p_= .029, Dr_v!ng -.21 -.40"
wasthepresent
of indicating
participants that with
improved (M practice,
= 63.4 vs.probe performance
M = 66.55) from i Accident Number
................ - "16 '.24
trial 1 to trial 2. A significant Age Group X Trial interaction, 'Ticket (,_Umber -,05 -.01
F__(2, 42) = 6.70, p_=.003, was also present (see Figure 5). Miles Driven ] .21 .11
When the interaction was examined using a Tukey HSD test, WM$ [ tt .t
the younger adults
performance exhibited
from trial significant
1 to trial improvement
2 (12< .001), whereas in
theprobe - Perceptual S_¢d
_ : ,: ] .3i* .26
differences between trials 1 and 2 for both the middle-aged .. LTOV-Percept_al -.02 -.20
and older adults were not significant. This indicates that there - UFOV*Divided -._7 -.32"
was a significant practice effect only for the young adults as ' UFOVoSe_ecfive "23 -.40"
the performance of the middle-aged and older adults remained
stable between trials. - _TOV-R_sk _ i02 -.t 9
...... s_.36
_en_al
.. -.09 .03
: 1_. _ SF"36 Physical .t4 -.12 "
_[} *significant,
I_< f_;
6_ :_-,]:iiiiiiii_ii:iliiiiii
_'. ii!i?i:i_(:.:i!
i_ii Complexity.
20: _........
iii._i-_iii:_i:_i_i_i-_i:i-_i_i.ii_;-
::::::::::::::::;::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
_ _ Overall, the results from this study support the
: _ _:_ .... primary hypothesis that older adults have lower SA, as
.. :: ,_:-_:_:_:_:_.... :_ ,,:-<_:._:,_::_:_:::_:_i_.
_.t _ measured by performance on the concurrent memory probe
_'_g M_dd_e Oiler than both younger and middle-aged adults. Complexity also
affected SA performance in this study. The high complexity
Figure 5: Percent of Queries Answered Correctly By Age condition was designed to be more cognitively demanding and
Group and Trial. thus require more processing resources than the moderate
276 PROCEEDINGS of the HUMAN FACTORS AND ERGONOMICS SOCIETY 45th ANNUAL MEETING- 2001
complexity condition. As expected, SA performance in the but they are not aware how fast they are going. Overall, it
moderate complexity condition was significantly better than appears that with increasing complexity older adults are more
that in the high complexity condition, susceptible to a narrowing of attention. They are aware of
While differences in SA performance between the their own performance, but less aware of their surroundings.
age groups were hypothesized to become more pronounced as Training programs that focus on expanding older adults view s
the complexity of the task increased, this did not bear out. of their surroundings and alerting them to their narrowing of
Results show that SA for all age groups declined from the attention could be very beneficial both to the older driver and
moderate complexity condition to the high complexity to the safety of others.
condition; however; older adults did not experience a greater In general, care must be taken when generalizing the
decrease in performance when compared to the other age results of a simulator study to the real world. Although the
groups, simulated environment is a close approximation to the real
A significant trial effect is also present. The SA task, it does not always measure what a person will do in
performance of the middle aged and older adults only reality.
improved slightly from trial 1 to trial 2, whereas the younger
adults' improvement in performance between trials is ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
significant. One plausible explanation is the younger adults
lack of driving experience. The younger adults may have This work was supported by a grant from the Institute on
initially approached the simulator as a computer game and not Aging at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The
a true driving task. After several probe stops, they realized author would also like to thank Dr. Karlene Ball for providing
that their driving abilities are being tested and thus adjust theft the Visual Attention Analyzer to measure UFOV.
behavior to optimize their test performance.
Surprisingly, relatively few background variables REFERENCES
were correlated with the SA measure. Only three measures
were significantly correlated with SA in both the moderate and Baddley, A. D. & Hitch, G. H. (1974). Working memory.
high complexity conditions, in the moderate complexity In G. Bower (Ed.), Recent Advances in Learning and Motivation.
condition gender, self-reported vision and perceptual speed VIII._..___New
York: Academic Press.
reached significance. The correlation between self-reported Bolstad, C. A. & Hess, T. M. (2000). Situation awareness
vision, perceptual speed and SA in the moderate complexity and aging. In M. R. Endsley and D. J. Garland (Eds.), Situation
Awareness Analysis and Measurement(pp. 277-302). Mahwah, NJ:
condition may indicate that in this relatively simplistic Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, inc.
scenario vision and perceptual speed are needed to perceive Endsley, M. R. (t 997). The role of situation awareness in
and extract the query information. All measures were naturalistic decision making. In C. E. Zsambok & G. Klein (Eds.),
expected to have moderate correlations in the high complexity Naturalistic decision making (pp. 269-283). Mahaw, New Jersey:
condition, but only three measures: UFOV divided attention, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
UFOV selective attention and driving experience reached Laux, L. (1995). Aging techniques. In J. Weimer (Ed.),
significance. The strong correlation between UFOV and SA Research techniques in human engineering (pp. 143-164). Englewood
suggests that these measures tap into similar processing Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Moody, H. (1994) _ Con__ and controversies.
resource pools. Specifically, UFOV is a visual-cognitive Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.
measure and the ability to perceive and extract information Morris, N, & Jones, D. M. (1990). Memory updating in
from the surroundings can also be considered a visual working memory: The role of the central executive. British Journal of
cognitiveability. Psychology, 8L1111-121.
This type ofresearch reported by this study can help Owsley, C., Ball, K. & Keeton, D. M. (1995). Relationship
in the development of better methods for testing and training between visual sensitivity and target localization in older adults.
older drivers. Whereas many older drivers are in fact safe Vision Research. 35(4). 579-587.
drivers, it is the few unsafe drivers that need to be identified. Salthouse, (1985). Speed of behavior and its implications
A large number of older adults are aware of their own for cognition, in J. Birren & K. Sehaie (Eds.), Handbook of
cognitive and physical abilities and how this impacts their Psychology and Aging_(pp. 400-426). New York: Van Nostrand.
Salthouse, T. A., & Coon, V. E. (1994). Interpretation of
driving performance. Thus, in many instances, they may differential deficits: The case of aging and mental arithmetic. Journal
develop compensatory mechanisms to help them overcome of ExnerimentalPsvch01oay:Leaming_Memo_ and Cog_tition, 20,
their cognitive and physical difficulties. In this study many 1172-1182.
older adults did compensate in the simulator by driving Smith, E. A. L., & Earles, J. L. (1996). Memory changes in
significantly slower than the other age groups. Using this normal aging. In F. Blanchard-Fields and T. M. Hess (Eds.)
compensation, though, they still were unable to match the Pers_etiv_eson_Cognitive C_e in Adulthood and Aging (pp. 192-
performance of their younger counterparts. 220). New York, New York: The McGraw-HillCompanies, Inc.
The SA measure may also be a potential method by Tun, P. A., & Wingfield, A. (I 997). Language and
which training programs can be developed to alert older communication. In A. D. Fisk and W. A. Rogers (Eds.) Handbook of
human factors and the older adults (pp. 125-149). SanDiego, CA:
drivers to their declining ability in recognizing critical AcademicPress.
information for the driving environment. In particular Ware, J.E., Jr. (1993). SF-36 Health Survey. Boston: The
analysis of the individual queries indicates that older adults are Health Institute, New England Medical Center.
aware if they are traveling above, below or at the speed limit,