Ueda S, Sato T, Kumada T. Model-Based Prediction of Operation Consequences When Driving a Car to Compensate for a Partially Restricted Visual Field by A-Pillars.
Front Hum Neurosci 2021;
15:697295. [PMID:
34803628 PMCID:
PMC8600357 DOI:
10.3389/fnhum.2021.697295]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/19/2021] [Accepted: 10/14/2021] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
The partial restriction of a driver's visual field by the physical structure of the car (e.g., the A-pillar) can lead to unsafe situations where steering performance is degraded. Drivers require both environmental information and visual feedback regarding operation consequences. When driving with a partially restricted visual field, and thus restricted visual feedback, drivers may predict operation consequences using a previously acquired internal model of a car. To investigate this hypothesis, we conducted a tracking and driving task in which visual information was restricted to varying degrees. In the tracking task, participants tracked a moving target on a computer screen with visible and invisible cursors. In the driving task, they drove a real car with or without the ability to see the distant parts of a visual field. Consequently, we found that the decrease in tracking performance induced by visual feedback restriction predicted the decrease in steering smoothness induced by visual field restriction, suggesting that model-based prediction was used in both tasks. These findings indicate that laboratory-based task performance can be used to identify drivers with low model-based prediction ability whose driving behavior is less optimal in restricted vision scenarios, even before they obtain a driver's license. However, further studies are required to examine the underlying neural mechanisms and to establish the generalizability of these findings to more realistic settings.
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