Assisting the older driver - SWOV

Assisting the older driver
Section 6.2.1), and they drove in the driving simulator for about 10 minutes as
an extra test on sensitivity to simulator sickness. Thirty‐three subjects (15
older and 18 younger participants) did not feel comfortable driving in the
simulator car as indicated by their score on a questionnaire on simulator
sickness (based on the SSQ; Kennedy, Lane, Berbaum & Lilienthal, 1993).
Therefore, they were not invited for the second visit to the UMCG.
During their second visit, the remaining participants first went for a short
familiarization drive (3.5 km) in the driving simulator. After that, they twice
drove a 35‐minute route in the simulator car (16 or 18 km; see Section 6.2.4),
once without and once with the support of an advanced driver assistance
system (for the behavioural effects of the support system see Davidse, Van
Wolffelaar, Hagenzieker, and Brouwer (2007)). The order of the drives was
counterbalanced between subjects (see Section 6.2.5). Between the first and
second drive, participants had a break of 45 minutes. Before the beginning of
each drive, participants were asked to adjust the seat’s position to make sure
they could reach the pedals, and were instructed orally about what was
expected from them during the drive that was about to start. They had to
follow route instructions and were asked to try to adhere to the speed limit
that was generally 50 km/h. After each drive, subjects had to fill in a
questionnaire on motion sickness (based on the SSQ; Kennedy et al., 1993)
and one on subjective workload (RSME; Zijlstra & Mulder, 1985).
Despite the earlier tests on simulator sickness, 15 participants (6 older, 9
younger drivers) felt sick while driving the simulator car during their second
visit. Another 17 subjects did not complete the second part of the experiment
because they were not able to participate in the span of time in which the
second visits were planned. As a result, behavioural data were available
from 40 participants: 10 chronologically older adult drivers (70 to 88 years of
age; μ = 75.5, σ = 6.2; 8 males, 2 females) and 30 chronologically younger
participants (30 to 50 years of age; μ = 39.3, σ = 5.9; 22 males, 8 females). In
terms of functional age, data were available from 10 functionally younger
participants (30 to 70 years of chronological age; μ = 39.1; σ = 12.2; 7 males, 3
females), 20 functionally middle‐aged participants (32 to 71 years of
chronological age; μ = 42.6; σ = 8.6; 16 males, 4 females), and 10 functionally
older participants (37 to 88 years of chronological age; μ = 69.2; σ = 16.9; 7
males, 3 females). Those not capable of participating in the second part of the
experiment, either because of serious symptoms of simulator sickness during
the 10‐minute drive at their first visit or because of a full agenda, received 10
€ for their participation in the first part of the experiment. All other
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