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Hazard anticipation of young novice drivers - SWOV

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with regard to the risk felt in these traffic situations with (possible) hazards<br />

(the emotional aspect <strong>of</strong> hazard <strong>anticipation</strong>). This is to say, they<br />

hypothesised that <strong>novice</strong> <strong>drivers</strong> know the (potential) hazards but do not feel<br />

fear when they see these (potential) hazards. In order to test this hypothesis<br />

they asked participants to classify photographs taken from the driver's<br />

perspective as (1) safe, (2) potentially hazardous (containing latent hazards)<br />

and (3) hazardous (containing imminent hazards). Meanwhile their Skin<br />

Conductance Response (SCR) was recorded. Novice <strong>drivers</strong> and experienced<br />

<strong>drivers</strong> did not differ significantly in their ability to classify photographs as<br />

potentially hazardous and hazardous. However, experienced <strong>drivers</strong><br />

classified significantly more <strong>of</strong>ten photographs as safe than <strong>novice</strong> <strong>drivers</strong><br />

did. Only when photographs that belonged to the group with potentially<br />

hazardous situations (latent hazards that could develop into imminent<br />

hazards) were displayed on the monitor, the mean number <strong>of</strong> SCRs <strong>of</strong><br />

experienced <strong>drivers</strong> was significantly higher than that <strong>of</strong> <strong>novice</strong> <strong>drivers</strong>. This<br />

result suggests that whereas both groups recognized latent hazards equally<br />

well on photographs, the experienced <strong>drivers</strong> more intensely felt the risk<br />

involved in these situations. This is in support <strong>of</strong> the hypothesis <strong>of</strong> Spear<br />

(2000) that adolescents require more intense stimuli to experience positive or<br />

negative feelings than adults (see the section on brain function during<br />

adolescence in Section 2.3.1). As Kelly et al. (2010) did not test a group <strong>of</strong><br />

<strong>novice</strong> <strong>drivers</strong> that started to drive late in life, it is not possible to tell if the<br />

increased feelings risk <strong>of</strong> the experienced <strong>drivers</strong> when they watched<br />

photographs containing latent hazards, were due to the fact that they were<br />

more matured or because they had more driving experience.<br />

Huestegge et al. (2010) also used photographs that were classified by experts<br />

as safe, potentially hazardous and hazardous. Each photograph was exposed<br />

for two seconds on the screen. Within this timeframe participants could<br />

indicate (by pressing a button or not) if they would have reduced speed in<br />

this situation or not if they were the driver. In the period a photograph was<br />

exposed on the screen, the gaze directions and fixations <strong>of</strong> the participant<br />

were recorded with the aid <strong>of</strong> eye tracking equipment. Studies in which eye<br />

tracking equipment is used, are separately discussed in Section 4.1.6. Here it<br />

is important to mention that <strong>novice</strong> <strong>drivers</strong> and experienced <strong>drivers</strong> did not<br />

differ with regard to the button presses they made. This means that there<br />

was no difference in tendency to reduce speed between <strong>novice</strong> <strong>drivers</strong> and<br />

experienced <strong>drivers</strong> with regard to the three different traffic situations<br />

presented on photographs (safe, potentially hazardous and hazardous). From<br />

the two mentioned studies <strong>of</strong> hazard perception test in which photographs<br />

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