The influence of predictability and frequency of events on the gaze behaviour while driving

Abstract

One possible reason for rear-end crashes might be that the driver is distracted as the driver does not pay enough attention to the driving task. Therefore allocation of attention must be appropriate to the demands of the current traffic situation. According to the SEEV-Model allocation of attention is determined by the expectancy that there will be new information in a visual channel. According to the model expectancy is determined by the event rate of the information. To investigate to what extent allocation of attention is determined by the absolute frequency of events or by the expected event rate an experiment was conducted in a dynamic driving simulator. The current results show that the predictability of the behaviour of the lead car has a bigger influence on the allocation of visual attention than the frequency of speed changes of a lead car and the frequency of a visual secondary task.