Runham, Patrick (2016) Understanding hazard perception in filmed and simulated environments. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham. Access from the University of Nottingham repository: http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/36163/1/Understanding%20HP%20in%20Filmed%20and %20Simulated%20Environments.pdf Copyright and reuse: The Nottingham ePrints service makes this work by researchers of the University of Nottingham available open access under the following conditions. This article is made available under the University of Nottingham End User licence and may be reused according to the conditions of the licence. For more details see: http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/end_user_agreement.pdf For more information, please contact [email protected] UNDERSTANDING HAZARD PERCEPTION IN FILMED AND SIMULATED ENVIRONMENTS Patrick Runham, MSc. Thesis submitted to the University of Nottingham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2016 Abstract Each year millions of people around the world are killed or are injured due to being involved in collisions while driving on the roads, with young and inexperienced drivers found to be significantly more likely to be killed or injured than older and more experienced drivers. Numerous studies have found a link between the likelihood of a driver being involved in a collision and their hazard perception (from this point on referred to as HP) ability, with young novice drivers having inferior HP abilities compared to older and more experienced drivers. As a result of these findings, governments in a number of countries have implemented or are investigating implementing HP testing elements into their driver examination programmes. This thesis presents a series of studies that investigate the factors that affect HP performance as well as comparing different HP testing methods. The more traditional video-based method is explored as well as new methods utilising a high-fidelity 180 degrees field-of-view driving simulator (used as an analogue of real world driving) in order to see if there are ways of making HP testing more representative of detecting and responding to hazards while driving on the road. This thesis also explores the use of functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIR) as a portable and flexible means of measuring dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) activity during driving. In study 1 a multidimensional scaling analysis was carried out upon a set of data from the official UK HP test in order to explore if there were any underlying factors accounting for test performance in the data. No underlying factors were uncovered, indicating that the individual hazard videos used in the test are generally testing the same functions and that the sets of video hazards used in the test are well balanced. Study 2 moved onto comparing different HP testing methods by creating simulated driving hazards (in which participants were required to drive through simulated scenarios that each contained driving hazards) to compare with video hazards (that the participants watched on a T.V.) that are very similar to those used in the UK HP test. The results of the study revealed significant differences in behavioural psychophysiological responses between the simulated and video hazards, indicating that that the video-based HP testing method may not be representative of HP while driving on the roads and that i introducing simulated elements into HP testing may provide a more realistic test of HP abilities. Study 3 consisted of an fNIR validation study carried out using three classic frontal tasks: the Wisconsin Card Sorting task, the Controlled Oral Word Association task and the Corsi Block task. The results of the study indicated that the fNIR system was primarily recording task workload and potentially task inhibition. Study 4 used fNIR to record DLPFC activity during simulated overtaking and following driving tasks, with the results revealing significantly higher DLPFC activity during the overtaking tasks. This DLPFC activity appeared to be more closely related to increased task workload rather than the inhibitory elements of the task. Study 5 consisted of an altered version of study 4, with the effect of driver age, driving experience and gender on driving behaviour and DLPFC activity being studied. The results again revealed significantly higher DLPFC activity for overtaking compared to following, however no effect of age, driving experience or gender on DLPFC activity was found. Males were found to overtake more times than females though. Study 6 brought the research regarding HP testing and fNIR together by recording DLPFC activity as participants took part in the same simulator based HP test used in study 2 or a replay HP test in which they simply watched and responded to replays of the simulated hazards. DLPFC activity was found to be similar in both conditions, indicating that the replay method may provide a relatively affordable and practical means of bridging the gap between traditional video-based HP testing methods and HP while driving on the roads. These findings have important implications for HP testing and the use of fNIR in driving research. ii Table of Contents Chapter 1 – General Introduction ......................................................................... 1 1.1 Thesis Outline ........................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Overview ................................................................................................................... 2 1.3 Hazard Perception ................................................................................................... 3 1.3.1 Driving Hazards .................................................................................................. 3 1.3.2 Hazard Perception ............................................................................................... 4 1.3.3 Video-Based Hazard Perception Testing ............................................................ 8 1.3.4 Simulator-Based HP Testing ............................................................................ 13 1.3.5 On-Road Hazard Perception Testing ................................................................ 19 1.3.6 Hazard Perception Training .............................................................................. 20 1.3.7 Age, Experience, Accident Liability and Hazard Perception ........................... 24 1.3.8 UK Hazard Perception Test .............................................................................. 28 1.3.9 Effect of The UK HP Test ................................................................................ 31 Chapter 2 – UK Hazard Perception Test ............................................................ 33 2.1 Abstract ................................................................................................................... 33 2.2 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 33 2.2.1 Hazard Properties .............................................................................................. 33 2.2.2 UK Hazard Perception Test .............................................................................. 34 2.3 - Study 1 .................................................................................................................. 36 2.4 Methodology ........................................................................................................ 36 2.4.1 Participants ....................................................................................................... 36 2.4.2. Materials .......................................................................................................... 37 2.4.3 Design ............................................................................................................... 38 2.4.4 Procedure .......................................................................................................... 39 2.5 Results ..................................................................................................................... 40 2.6 Discussion ................................................................................................................ 44 Chapter 3 - Behavioural and Physiological Differences Between a Hazard Perception Test and Simulated Driving .............................................................. 48 3.1 Abstract ................................................................................................................... 48 3.2 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 48 3.2.1 General Introduction ......................................................................................... 48 3.2.2 Using Driving Simulation to Test Hazard Perception ...................................... 49 3.2.3 Physiology of Driving ....................................................................................... 51 3.3 Study 2 ..................................................................................................................... 53 3.4 Methodology ........................................................................................................... 54 3.4.1 Participants ........................................................................................................ 54 3.4.2 Apparatus and Stimuli ....................................................................................... 55 3.4.3 Notes