Conversation disrupts visual scanning of traffic scenes. Presented at the Ninth Vision in V.pdfVIP

Conversation Disrupts Visual Scanning of Traffic Scenes 1 1 2 Jason S. McCarley , Margaret Vais , Heather Pringle , Arthur F. 1 1 3 Kramer , David E. Irwin , David L. Strayer 1Beckman Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 2U.S. Air Force Academy 3University of Utah 1. Introduction It is well documented that the ability to effectively scan a visual scene is modulated by the perceptual and cognitive demands of the observer’s search task, with increases in visual workload effecting changes to both overt attention, the eye movements made in searching the environment, and covert attention, the processing which occurs within the span of a single fixation of the eye (see Crundall, et al, 1998, for review). More poorly understood are the effects of non-visual workload on search and representation of the visual environment. Experimental data as well as everyday experience indicate that multiple-task performance is generally facilitated when input and output channels are distributed across perceptual modalities and response effectors (Wickens Holland, 2000). Nonetheless, evidence demonstrates that cognitive interference can impair multiple-task performance even when structural interference—that is, competition for sensory mechanisms and response effectors (Kahneman, 1973)—is eliminated. With the burgeoning popularity of in-vehicle technology, and in particular the growing use of cellular phones on the road, the consequences of cross-modal and cognitive interference for visual performance have become of increasing concern. Intuition, manifest in legislation banning only the use of hand-held cellular phones in vehicles, suggests that the effects of such technology on driv