A critical path modelling GOMS approach for decomposing lane changes on a two-lane highway

Abstract

Driving is a complex task requiring processing on psychomotor, perceptual and cognitive level. An intimate understanding of the occurrence and timing of the processing steps is necessary when modelling driver behaviour and intent in cognitive architectures (e.g., ACT-R, Anderson et al., 2004). However, until now, little research on the decomposition of the driving task into the involved operations has been conducted. The approach of Critical Path Modelling Goals Operators Methods Selection rules (CPM-GOMS, John & Kieras, 1996) provides a framework for describing motor, perceptual and cognitive operators of a task on a granular time level. Thus, we employed CPM-GOMS in order to analyse lane change manoeuvres accomplished on a two-lane highway in real traffic. Here, we present the decomposition of three different types of lane changes (merging to the highway, change from right to left lane, and back) based on video observation of driver and environment as well as driving data analysis of three participants driving on the German autobahn A39. The resulting model forms the basis for understanding the aspects of vehicle operations and serves the creation of cognitive models.