Hazard anticipation of young novice drivers - SWOV

or little interference with the driving task. Although at the procedural stage,
gear shifting is executed effortlessly and without much thinking, even for the
most experienced driver this task never gets fully automated (Groeger &
Clegg, 1997) and at some moments attentional monitoring is required to
check if task performance develops according to plan (Reason, 1990).
Anderson's theory of skill acquisition is based on his Adaptive Control of
Thought (ACT) model about mental representations and behaviour. This
model has changed considerably over time. In its latest version (ACT-R 5.0)
(Anderson et al., 2004) this model contains four modules. Firstly, a visual
module for identifying objects. The occipital lobe of the brain fulfils a
dominant role in this module. Secondly, a manual model that controls the
hands. The motor cortex and the cerebellum are important for this module.
Thirdly, a declarative module for retrieving information that is stored in long
term memory. The hippocampus and the temporal lobe are important for
this module. And fourthly, a goal module for keeping track of current goals
and intentions. Several regions of the brain are active in this module, but
most importantly the DLPFC. Coordination between the modules is achieved
through a central production system. Input for this production system is not
directly delivered by the modules, but by buffers of the modules. The reason
is that because of limited capacity, the central production system can only
deal with information of the modules that is relevant. For instance, people
are not aware of all the information in the visual field but only of the object
they are attending to. Similarly, people are not aware of all the information in
long-term memory but only of what is currently retrieved. The central
production system (located in parts of the basal ganglia of the brain) can
recognize patterns in the various buffers and make changes to these buffers
by matching, selection and execution. As a consequence of development in
the ACT-model, the status of the procedural stage has changed. Originally,
skill performance at the procedural level was considered as fast, effortless
but also as rigid. In the latest ACT-model model, performance at the
procedural level can be flexible. Karmiloff-Smith (1992) takes as an example a
piano player. Piano playing is not the same as driving, but both are complex
perceptual motor skills. When one is learning to play the piano, initially there
is a period during which a sequence of separate notes is laboriously practiced
(the declarative stage). This is followed by a period during which chunks of
several notes are played together as blocks (the knowledge compilation
stage), until finally the whole piece can be played more or less automatically
(the procedural stage). Karmiloff-Smith (1992) calls the procedural stage
based on the older versions of the ACT-model 'reaching behavioural
mastery'. However, when this stage is reached the learner can still not start in
49