Chech, Luca;
(2023)
The Effect Of Perceptual Load On Attention Switching.
Masters thesis (M.Phil), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
Automation in the car is becoming progressively more sophisticated and we are now approaching a critical junction, where vehicles will be capable of taking care of all aspects of driving but with the expectation that the driver will promptly respond to a request to take-over. With drivers already engaging in a variety of non-driving tasks, it becomes crucial to evaluate the assumption of their readiness to intervene. While simulator studies have partly addressed this expectation by comparing different non- driving tasks, no research has tried to systematically vary the attentional demands of the non-driving tasks and measure their impact on the take-over process. Here, aided by the conceptual framework provided by Perceptual Load Theory, I explore two different scenarios showing how manipulation of attentional load in the non-driving task might hamper drivers’ ability to execute different aspects of the take-over process. While testing was performed entirely in the laboratory, each experiment employs tasks designed to be relevant proxies for both the non-driving tasks and the take-over request. In Chapter 2, I present two experiments in which participants are asked to watch a sequence of natural scenes of varied perceptual load – the non-driving task – while monitoring for the occurrence of an auditory stimulus – the take-over request. High perceptual load was associated with reduced detection of the auditory stimulus. The three experiments reported in Chapter 3 instead aim at understanding the extent to which high attentional demands right before a task switch might hamper the ability to correctly process and respond to the motion of other vehicles, assessed with the use of random dot kinematograms. A high level of perceptual load was reliably accompanied by slower responses to the motion stimuli. Finally, in Chapter 4 I describe an fMRI experiment looking at possible neural contributions to the reaction- time delay observed in Chapter 3.
| Type: | Thesis (Masters) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | M.Phil |
| Title: | The Effect Of Perceptual Load On Attention Switching |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2023. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| Keywords: | Perceptual load, self-driving cars |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10166143 |
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