Hazard anticipation of young novice drivers - SWOV

of the University of Massachusetts (Fisher et al., 2006; Pollatsek et al., 2006;
Pradhan et al., 2009). These PC-based training programs, as already
mentioned are called, Risk Awareness and Perception Training (RAPT).
RAPT is currently in its third version. RAPT-1 presents the participant with a
plan view of various hazardous scenarios. Participants have to identify areas
of the scenario that might contain a possible hazard. These are mostly covert
latent hazards. Plan views are used to allow participants to process more
deeply the reason that a particular scenario contained a latent hazard. This is
to say that with the aid of plan views a learner can grasp the underlying
principal of a hazard more profoundly than when photographs from the
driver's perspective are used. When the general principles of the causes are
understood far transfer will improve (Reeves & Weisberg, 1994). RAPT-2, in
addition to the plan views, also includes a photograph of the scenario from
the driver's perspective. This is done to aid the visualization process and to
emphasize that the scenarios can occur in real life. In RAPT-3 sequences of
photographs taken from the driver's perspective of a developing traffic
situation that contains a latent hazard are presented on the screen. Each
photograph is exposed for 3 s. The hazard never materializes in the sequence
of photographs. These sequences of photographs of developing traffic
situations are presented to participants as a pre-test and a post-test.
Participants are requested to click with their mouse on areas of each
photograph to which they would pay particular attention because of a
possible latent hazard. In the training part between the pre-test and the posttest,
different sequences of photographs are used. After each sequence of
photographs, a plan view of the area where the latent hazard could
materialize is presented. On the basis of the plan view, the particular latent
hazard that could develop in the scenario is identified. After this instruction
with the aid of a plan view, the same sequence of photographs is presented
that was presented before the instruction section with the plan view.
Learners can only starts with the next scenario (a new set of photographs of a
developing traffic situation) if the mouse clicks are on areas that allow
learners to detect hazards in this sequence of photographs. If this is not the
case, the sequence of photographs is repeated up to three more times.
The different versions of RAPT were evaluated in test drives in a
simulator and in drives in cars in real traffic. During these test drives (both in
a simulator and in a real car) the eye movements of participants were
recorded with the aid of an eye tracker. Trained young novice drivers made
significantly more eye glances that allowed for early detection of latent
hazards than untrained novice drivers. This was true in both near transfer
scenarios and far transfers scenarios, although the effect size was smaller in
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