Hazard anticipation of young novice drivers - SWOV

and risk assessment). The principal hypothesis was that the cognitive aspect
mainly improves with experience and that the emotional and motivational
aspect mainly improves with age (i.e. maturation of predominantly the PFC).
In order to test this hypothesis, two hazard anticipation tasks were
developed: a hazard detection and recognition task presumed to measure in
particularly the cognitive aspect of hazard anticipation and a risk assessment
and action selection task presumed to measure in particularly the emotional
and motivational aspect of hazard anticipation. Three groups made the two
tasks: young learner drivers that started to take driving lessons as soon as the
age limit was reached; older learner drivers that started to take driving
lessons when they were 25 years of age or older; and experienced drivers.
Young learner drivers and older learner drivers showed significantly less
anticipatory eye glances in situations with covert latent hazards than
experienced drivers and there was no significant difference between young
learner drivers and older learner drivers. This result is in support of the
hypothesis that the cognitive aspect of hazard anticipation improves with
experience as far as covert latent hazards concerned. Indications that novice
drivers have problems detecting and recognizing covert latent hazards in
studies using video clips and eye tracker equipment, were found before
(Borowsky et al., 2010; Underwood, Chapman, et al., 2002). However, as in
these studies no comparison was made between novice drivers that start to
drive late in life and novice drivers that start to drive early in life, these
studies did not provide indications whether poor detection and recognition
of covert latent hazards is mainly a matter of lack of experience or mainly a
matter of age. Pradhan et al. (2005) also found that novice drivers made
fewer anticipatory eye glances than experienced drivers in situations with
latent hazards of which most of the latent hazards were covert latent
hazards. However, in this study participants drove in a simulator. It could be
argued that novice drivers make less anticipatory eye glances while driving
because the execution of the driving task (manoeuvring, shifting gear, the
mastering of basic traffic situations) is not yet performed at the procedural
stage (Anderson, 1982). Because of this, more mental capacity is needed for
driving itself and therefore less mental capacity can be allocated to the
anticipation of possible hazards. Underwood, Chapman et al. (2002) found
that novice drivers did not adapt their visual scanning patterns as well as
experienced drivers did to the type of road (rural roads versus urban roads)
even when they watched videos and did not have to drive. In the study
presented in this chapter, learner drivers made less anticipatory eye glances
than experienced drivers while they did not have to drive. Both the study of
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