Hazard anticipation of young novice drivers - SWOV

explicitly know the heuristic of the game. Bechara et al. (1994) called this
prolonged drawing of cards from the high yielding decks that are
disadvantageous on the long run, 'myopia for the future'. To some extent,
adolescents have 'myopia for the future' too. This is to say that controlled for
developmental changes in working memory, capacity or inductive reasoning,
adolescents keep on turning cards from the decks with high payments, but
also with high penalties for a longer period of time than adults (e.g. Crone &
van der Molen, 2004). This myopia for the future of adolescents can be
explained by the discrepancy between the late maturation of the PFC and the
early maturation of the limbic system in adolescents (Casey et al., 2008) (see
Section 2.3.1).
The somatic marker hypothesis is not undisputed. Dunn, Dalgleish &
Lawrence (2006) have presented an overview of the critical arguments and
research results that undermine the claims of the somatic marker hypothesis.
Most of the critical reviews refer to the Iowa Gambling Task. Bechara et al.
(1997) found that healthy participants switched decks before they explicitly
know why. However, Maia & McClelland (2004) found that healthy
participants switched decks after they knew that the high-paying decks were
disadvantageous. This implies that no gut feelings, evoked by somatic
markers have to be involved in the switch in strategy. Moreover, patients
with 'Pure Autonomic Failure' who are not able to send feedback to the
viscera (and because of this in essence are not able to develop somatic
markers), appeared to be able to switch decks as timely as healthy
participants (Heims et al., 2004). Although Dunn et al. (2006) concluded that
the somatic marker hypothesis needs revision, they did not reject the whole
theory. According to them, the somatic marker hypothesis has been helpful
in the identification of brain regions involved in decision-making, emotion
and body-state representation, but the theory has fallen short in explaining
how these entities exactly interact at the psychological level.
Hazard anticipation in driving is different from risk anticipation in the
Iowa Gambling Task. If for instance an experienced driver recognizes the
possibility of oncoming traffic that he or she cannot see because of the lorry
(see Figure 3.9) and still quickly turns left, this driver deliberately takes the
risk of getting involved in a crash. If on the other hand this driver slowly
turns left while looking to the right in anticipation of possible oncoming
traffic, she or he will reach her or his destination only a few seconds later. In
other words, when deliberately taking risks in traffic one can lose a lot and
gain a little. In the Iowa Gambling Task, on the other hand one can lose some
and gain a lot. Callan et al. (2009) did not measure increased activity in the
VMPFC, but in the gyrus cinguli anterior instead, when experienced drivers
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