Visual and steering behaviours during lane departures: a longitudinal study of interactions between lane departure warning system, driving task and driving experience.

Lane Departure Warning Systems (LDWS) generate a warning in case of imminent lane departure. LDWS have proven to be effective and associated human-machine cooperation modelled. In this study, LDWS acceptance and its impact on visual and steering behaviour have been investigated over 6 weeks for novice and experienced drivers. Unprovoked lane departures were analysed along three driving tasks gradually more demanding. These observations were compared to a baseline condition without automation. The number of lane departures and their duration were dramatically reduced by LDWS, and a narrower visual spread of search during lane departure events was recorded. The findings confirmed LDWS effectiveness and suggested that these benefits are supported by visuo-attentional guidance. No specific influence of driving experience on LDWS was found, suggesting that similar cognitive processes are engaged with or without driving experience. Drivers' acceptance of LDWS lowered after automation use, but LDWS effectiveness remained stable during prolonged use.Practitioner summary: Lane Departure Warning Systems (LDWS) have been designed to prevent lane departure crashes. Here, LDWS assessment over a 6-week period showed a major drop in the number of lane departure events increasing over time. LDWS effectiveness is supported by the guidance of drivers' visual attention during lane departure events.

Key Age-Friendly Components of Municipalities that Foster Social Participation of Aging Canadians: Results from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging.

Municipalities can foster the social participation of aging adults. Although making municipalities age-friendly is recognized as a promising way to help aging adults stay involved in their communities, little is known about the key components (e.g., services and structures) that foster social participation. This study thus aimed to identify key age-friendly components (AFC) best associated with the social participation of older Canadians. Secondary analyses were carried out using baseline data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (n = 25,411) in selected municipalities (m = 110 with ≥ 30 respondents), the Age-friendly Survey, and census data. Social participation was estimated based on the number of community activities outside the home per month. AFC included housing, transportation, outdoor spaces and buildings, safety, recreation, workforce participation, information, respect, health, and community services. Multilevel models were used to examine the association between individual social participation, key AFC, and environmental characteristics, while controlling for individual characteristics. Aged between 45 and 89, half of the participants were women who were engaged in 20.2±12.5 activities per month. About 2.5% of the variance in social participation was attributable to municipalities. Better outdoor spaces and buildings (p < 0.001), worse communication and information (p < 0.01), and lower material deprivation (p < 0.001) were associated with higher social participation. Age was the only individual-level variable to have a significant random effect, indicating that municipal contexts may mediate its impact with social participation. This study provides insights to help facilitate social participation and promote age-friendliness, by maintaining safe indoor and outdoor mobility, and informing older adults of available activities.

Dynamic scan paths investigations under manual and highly automated driving.

Active visual scanning of the scene is a key task-element in all forms of human locomotion. In the field of driving, steering (lateral control) and speed adjustments (longitudinal control) models are largely based on drivers' visual inputs. Despite knowledge gained on gaze behaviour behind the wheel, our understanding of the sequential aspects of the gaze strategies that actively sample that input remains restricted. Here, we apply scan path analysis to investigate sequences of visual scanning in manual and highly automated simulated driving. Five stereotypical visual sequences were identified under manual driving: forward polling (i.e. far road explorations), guidance, backwards polling (i.e. near road explorations), scenery and speed monitoring scan paths. Previously undocumented backwards polling scan paths were the most frequent. Under highly automated driving backwards polling scan paths relative frequency decreased, guidance scan paths relative frequency increased, and automation supervision specific scan paths appeared. The results shed new light on the gaze patterns engaged while driving. Methodological and empirical questions for future studies are discussed.

Vivre sans ma voiture : une intervention pour soutenir les Canadiens-francophones âgés.

The cessation of driving is a difficult transition for the elderly, but it can be facilitated through interventions. The purpose of this study was to explore the satisfaction, usefulness and applicability of the CarFreeMe intervention in the French-Canadian context. A qualitative clinical research device was used on ten older adults aged between 61 and 90 years. The participants had stopped driving within the last twelve months or were planning to stop driving in the near future and did not have cognitive impairments. After the intervention, the participants were generally satisfied and reported on its usefulness and applicability in a French-Canadian context. In addition, they identified the positive impacts related to their social involvement as they re-engaged in or pursued their significant activities. Further research is required to assess the intervention's effects and the practicability of implementing it in Canada.

Do distinct mind wandering differently disrupt drivers? Interpretation of physiological and behavioral pattern with a data triangulation method.

MW is damaging for tasks requiring sustained and divided attention, for example driving. Recent findings seem to be indicating that off-task thoughts differently disrupt drivers. The present paper delved into characteristics of off-task thoughts to assess their respective detrimental impact on driving. Twenty volunteers had to declare their MW thoughts and get intentionally involved in Problem-Solving Thoughts (PST) according to instructions. Heart rate and oculometric behavior were collected during the two sessions. Results showed that MW and PST led to a fixed gaze. MW might also led to a cognitive effort necessary to switch from task-unrelated to task-related focus. Similarities and differences between intentional and unintentional off-task thoughts were discussed in greater detail. By designing a detection algorithm, it could be possible to detect disruptive MW during risky situations while permitting the mind to wander when the driving demand is low.

Effect of personalised citizen assistance for social participation (APIC) on older adults' health and social participation: study protocol for a pragmatic multicentre randomised controlled trial (RCT).

INTRODUCTION: The challenges of global ageing and the growing burden of chronic diseases require innovative interventions acting on health determinants like social participation. Many older adults do not have equitable opportunities to achieve full social participation, and interventions might underempower their personal and environmental resources and only reach a minority. To optimise current practices, the Accompagnement-citoyen Personnalisé d'Intégration Communautaire (APIC), an intervention demonstrated as being feasible and having positive impacts, needs further evaluation. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: A pragmatic multicentre, prospective, two-armed, randomised controlled trial will evaluate: (1) the short-term and long-term effects of the APIC on older adults' health, social participation, life satisfaction and healthcare services utilisation and (2) its cost-effectiveness. A total of 376 participants restricted in at least one instrumental activity of daily living and living in three large cities in the province of Quebec, Canada, will be randomly assigned to the experimental or control group using a centralised computer-generated random number sequence procedure. The experimental group will receive weekly 3-hour personalised stimulation sessions given by a trained volunteer over the first 12 months. Sessions will encourage empowerment, gradual mobilisation of personal and environmental resources and community integration. The control group will receive the publicly funded universal healthcare services available to all Quebecers. Over 2 years (baseline and 12, 18 and 24 months later), self-administered questionnaires will assess physical and mental health (primary outcome; version 2 of the 36-item Short-Form Health Survey, converted to SF-6D utility scores for quality-adjusted life years), social participation (Social Participation Scale) and life satisfaction (Life Satisfaction Index-Z). Healthcare services utilisation will be recorded and costs of each intervention calculated. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The Research Ethics Committee of the CIUSSS Estrie - CHUS has approved the study (MP-31-2018-2424). An informed consent form will be read and signed by all study participants. Findings will be published and presented at conferences. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT03161860; Pre-results.

Respiration and Heart Rate Modulation Due to Competing Cognitive Tasks While Driving.

Research works on operator monitoring underline the benefit of taking into consideration several signal modalities to improve accuracy for an objective mental state diagnosis. Heart rate (HR) is one of the most utilized systemic measures to assess cognitive workload (CW), whereas, respiration parameters are hardly utilized. This study aims at verifying the contribution of analyzing respiratory signals to extract features to evaluate driver's activity and CW variations in driving. Eighteen subjects participated in the study. The participants carried out two different cognitive tasks requiring different CW demands, a single task as well as a competing cognitive task realized while driving in a simulator. Our results confirm that both HR and breathing rate (BR) increase in driving and are sensitive to CW. However, HR and BR are differently modulated by the CW variations in driving. Specifically, HR is affected by both driving activity and CW, whereas, BR is suitable to evidence a variation of CW only when driving is not required. On the other hand, spectral features characterizing respiratory signal could be also used similarly to HR variability indices to detect high CW episodes. These results hint the use of respiration as an alternative to HR to monitor the driver mental state in autonomic vehicles in order to predict the available cognitive resources if the user has to take over the vehicle.

Capturing how age-friendly communities foster positive health, social participation and health equity: a study protocol of key components and processes that promote population health in aging Canadians.

BACKGROUND: To address the challenges of the global aging population, the World Health Organization promoted age-friendly communities as a way to foster the development of active aging community initiatives. Accordingly, key components (i.e., policies, services and structures related to the communities' physical and social environments) should be designed to be age-friendly and help all aging adults to live safely, enjoy good health and stay involved in their communities. Although age-friendly communities are believed to be a promising way to help aging Canadians lead healthy and active lives, little is known about which key components best foster positive health, social participation and health equity, and their underlying mechanisms. This study aims to better understand which and how key components of age-friendly communities best foster positive health, social participation and health equity in aging Canadians. Specifically, the research objectives are to: 1) Describe and compare age-friendly key components of communities across Canada 2) Identify key components best associated with positive health, social participation and health equity of aging adults 3) Explore how these key components foster positive health, social participation and health equity METHODS: A mixed-method sequential explanatory design will be used. The quantitative part will involve a survey of Canadian communities and secondary analysis of cross-sectional data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA). The survey will include an age-friendly questionnaire targeting key components in seven domains: physical environment, housing options, social environment, opportunities for participation, community supports and healthcare services, transportation options, communication and information. The CLSA is a large, national prospective study representative of the Canadian aging population designed to examine health transitions and trajectories of adults as they age. In the qualitative part, a multiple case study will be conducted in five Canadian communities performing best on positive health, social participation and health equity. DISCUSSION: Building on new and existing collaborations and generating evidence from real-world interventions, the results of this project will help communities to promote age-friendly policies, services and structures which foster positive health, social participation and health equity at a population level.

Enhancing Older Drivers' Safety: On Effects Induced by Stereotype Threat to Older Adults' Driving Performance, Working Memory and Self-Regulation.

In a study concerned with driving behaviors of older drivers (mean age 70 years) in a driving simulator, our findings indicate that telling older drivers that they are more at risk of accidents because of their age and their driving performance-related decline (i.e., exposing them to a stereotype threat concerning older drivers) severely impairs their self-regulatory skills. Moreover, our results show that this is at least partly due to exhaustion of the executive resources (older drivers under stereotype threat tended to contradict the stereotype of being slow by driving faster), appearing also through working memory overload (older drivers under stereotype threat performed markedly less well in a modular arithmetic task than drivers in the control condition). We thus complete the existing evidence that older drivers' performance may be affected by socially-grounded factors, suggesting that simply being investigated may be enough to tax many capabilities in older people. We also propose that stereotype threat might be at least a partial explanation for why older drivers sometimes have poorer self-regulation performances after attending rehabilitation programs designed to make older drivers safer ones.

Alleviating simulator sickness with galvanic cutaneous stimulation.

OBJECTIVE: In a driving simulation, we investigated the efficacy of galvanic cutaneous stimulation (GCS) provided during curves or intermittently during the whole circuit to mitigate simulator syndrome (SS). BACKGROUND: The literature on how GCS decreases SS, although scarce, has demonstrated the effectiveness of this technique. Stimulation with this and similar techniques has usually been provided in curves or continuously during the whole circuit but never intermittently. This stimulation method could generate a continued activation of processes related to GCS mitigating SS. METHOD: Fifteen drivers (8 men; mean age = 25.5 years) participated in this experiment. We compared the total scores of the Simulator Sickness Questionnaire (SSQ) across three stimulation conditions: (a) curve GCS condition, whereby GCS was provided in curves; (b) intermittent GCS condition, whereby GCS was provided intermittently during the whole circuit; and (c) no-stimulation condition, whereby no stimulation was provided (baseline condition). RESULTS: The experimental outcomes revealed that GCS decreased SS in both the curve and intermittent stimulation conditions. CONCLUSION: We provide evidence that GCS is an effective countermeasure to decrease SS. It could be applied indifferently in curves or intermittently during the whole circuit. APPLICATION: For future interventions, we recommend the use of GCS to mitigate SS with similar intermittent stimulation programs. These programs have a crucial advantage as they are easily integrated into the simulator setup without the necessity of generating a complicated experimental design to stimulate during the curves.

The restless mind while driving: drivers' thoughts behind the wheel.

UNLABELLED: Recent research has clearly shown that inattention when driving has an indisputable impact on road safety. "Mind wandering" (MW), an inattentional state caused by a shift in attention from the ongoing task to inner thoughts, is not only frequent in everyday activities but also known to impact performance. There is a growing body of research investigating the concept of MW, suggesting potential causes that could foster such a phenomenon. Only one epidemiological study has focused on this issue in a critical driving context (Galéra et al., 2012), and it revealed the harmful effects of MW in increasing the risk of a car crash. Experimental studies rather consider that driver would adduce in MW (Lemercier et al., 2014). When the driving context is too hard or the thought too difficult to proceed, driver reduced their MW. The aim of this paper is to examine this issue using the most recent trip of ordinary drivers whose MW state did not lead to a road accident. Using a questionnaire, information was collected about the participants' most recent trip as a driver, including: (1) personal characteristics, (2) context in which MW occurs, (3) awareness of MW episodes and finally (4) characteristics of the thoughts. RESULTS: revealed that MW affected 85.2% of the drivers, who spent on average 34.74% of their trip in a MW state. Moreover, we found that the contexts which favor MW are situations in which less of the driver's attention is needed to drive, such as familiar commutes, monotonous motorways or by-passes, or when drivers were alone in their cars. In these MW situations, the drivers quickly became aware of their MW episodes. Thoughts tend to involve neutral private concerns, related to present- or future-oriented content. Our findings suggest that MW is a functional state aiming to solve current problems. Future investigations should focus on this critical concept of MW when driving, both to identify safety issues and to provide suitable solutions for drivers subject to a wandering mind.

Effects of shrinkage of the visual field through ageing on parking performance: a parametric manipulation of salience and relevance of contextual components.

The Master Activation model of attention (Michael, Vairet, and Fernandez, Capture attentionnelle en vision: La saillance, la pertinence, et la balance cortico-sous-corticale. In: G. A. Michael (ed), Neuroscience cognitive de l'attention visuelle [Cognitive Neuroscience of Visual Attention], Solal, Marseille, pp. 165-201, 2007; Michael, Lété, and Ducrot, Trajectories of Attentional Development: An Exploration with the Master Activation Map Model, Developmental Psychology, 49:615-631, 2013) was used to study visual attention and driving behaviours of younger and older drivers while parking a car. The salience and the relevance of elements present in the parking environment were manipulated during parking manoeuvres. Different effects on manoeuvring were observed depending on driver characteristics such as age and the extent of the field of view (FV). It was found that the presence of a relevant element, such as a pedestrian, impaired parking performance only among older drivers with a narrower FV. The distinct effects of salience and relevance suggest that they had different statuses in attentional processing of manoeuvring drivers.

Influence of prior use of the same or different effectors in a reaching action.

Use of different effectors in two consecutive actions could generate an attentional shift between the effectors with shorter latencies in the second action of reaching. 18 participants (10 men; M age = 21.3 yr.) participated in an experiment with two main variables: (1) effector switching with two levels (Switching and No Switching), where the participants use or do not use a different motor effector for each action; (2) lifting muscles, i.e., the muscles involved in the first phase of the reaching, with two levels (finger-lifting muscle and palm-lifting muscle). Premotor time, Motor time, Reaction time, Movement time, and Total time were measured. For Premotor, Movement, and Total times, faster responses were observed when there was no switching of the effector. This delay could be due to an attentional shift between motor effectors and its relations with motor processes. Possible applications include the ergonomic design of device controls, considering that the use of the same effector is beneficial when fast reaction times are sought.

Distraction and driving: results from a case-control responsibility study of traffic crash injured drivers interviewed at the emergency room.

BACKGROUND: Use of cellular phones has been shown to be associated with crashes but many external distractions remain to be studied. OBJECTIVE: To assess the risk associated with diversion of attention due to unexpected events or secondary tasks at the wheel. DESIGN: Responsibility case-control study. SETTING: Adult emergency department of the Bordeaux University Hospital (France) from April 2010 to August 2011. PARTICIPANTS: 955 injured drivers presenting as a result of motor vehicle crash. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The main outcome variable was responsibility for the crash. Exposures were external distraction, alcohol use, psychotropic medicine use, and sleep deprivation. Potential confounders were sociodemographic and crash characteristics. RESULTS: Beyond classical risk factor found to be associated with responsibility, results showed that distracting events inside the vehicle (picking up an object), distraction due to driver activity (smoking) and distracting events occurring outside were associated with an increased probability of being at fault. These distraction-related factors accounted for 8% of injurious road crashes. LIMITATIONS: Retrospective responsibility self-assessment. CONCLUSIONS: Diverted attention may carry more risk than expected. Our results are supporting recent research efforts to detect periods of driving vulnerability related to inattention.

Mind wandering and driving: responsibility case-control study.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the association between mind wandering (thinking unrelated to the task at hand) and the risk of being responsible for a motor vehicle crash. DESIGN: Responsibility case-control study. SETTING: Adult emergency department of a university hospital in France, April 2010 to August 2011. PARTICIPANTS: 955 drivers injured in a motor vehicle crash. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Responsibility for the crash, mind wandering, external distraction, negative affect, alcohol use, psychotropic drug use, and sleep deprivation. Potential confounders were sociodemographic and crash characteristics. RESULTS: Intense mind wandering (highly disrupting/distracting content) was associated with responsibility for a traffic crash (17% (78 of 453 crashes in which the driver was thought to be responsible) v 9% (43 of 502 crashes in which the driver was not thought to be responsible); adjusted odds ratio 2.12, 95% confidence interval 1.37 to 3.28). CONCLUSIONS: Mind wandering while driving, by decoupling attention from visual and auditory perceptions, can jeopardise the ability of the driver to incorporate information from the environment, thereby threatening safety on the roads.

Different effects in tactile attention between the thumb and its metacarpus and the palm.

The aim of this study is to establish whether the thumb is represented independently of the palm. An exogenous spatial cueing paradigm was used, where participants had to detect a tactile stimulus that could appear on the proximal and distal phalanges or metacarpus of the thumb (thenar area; Experiment 1) and the metacarpus of the thumb or hypothenar area of the palm (Experiment 2) of the left hand. Our results suggest the thumb and its metacarpus share the same mental representation, which is distinct from the representation of the palm.

Older drivers' self-regulation: discrepancy reduction or region of proximal learning?

We examined older adults' self-regulation within the region of proximal learning (RPL) framework. Younger and older drivers completed four circuits of increasing difficulty in a driving simulator and were then given a limited amount of time to train for a test. Although older drivers chose to train on easier circuits than younger ones, both age groups focused on the easier circuits first, only moving to the more difficult ones later. They were thus equally able to identify their RPL. This framework appears to apply beyond the obvious scope of metamemory and provides a behavioral assessment of self-regulation in driving settings.

Deterioration of the useful visual field with age and sleep deprivation: insight from signal detection theory.

The goal of this study was to establish whether the deterioration of the useful visual field due to sleep deprivation and age in a screen monitoring activity could be explained by a decrease in perceptual sensitivity and/or a modification of the participant's decision criterion (two indices derived from signal detection theory). In the first experiment, a comparison of three age groups (young, middle-aged, elderly) showed that perceptual sensitivity decreased with age and that the decision criterion became more conservative. In the second experiment, measurement of the useful visual field was carried out on participants who had been deprived of sleep the previous night or had a complete night of sleep. Perceptual sensitivity significantly decreased with sleep debt, and sleep deprivation provoked an increase in the participants' decision criterion. Moreover, the comparison of two age groups (young, middle-aged) indicated that sensitivity decreased with age. The value of using these two indices to explain the deterioration of useful visual field is discussed.