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The Relationship between Attention to Preview and Action during Roadway Tracking

Rizzi, Emanuele
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu153331644665238

Abstract Details

2018, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Psychology.
Cognitive aspects of driving on a winding roadway were investigated using a model comprised of a driver, a vehicle, and a roadway. The model contained a feedback loop for maintaining lane position and feedforward that utilized anticipatory roadway information available in preview (Donges, 1978, McRuer, Allen, Weir, & Klein, 1977). Perturbation techniques assessed both feedback control and feedforward attention. Subjects’ attentional allocation to preview was determined by analyzing the Fourier spectrum of their steering movements as they attempted to center a cursor on a winding roadway. This technique provided a distribution of signal-to-noise ratios indicating where and how much attention subjects allocated to different preview locations. We used this measure to test predictions of an optimal control model (Miller, 1976) that attention for a rate control system would be concentrated on preview regions closer to the vehicle and decrease to almost no attention to regions further away. Experiment 1 demonstrated that the measurement technique could adequately capture how subjects allocated attention. We compared how the spatiotemporal shape and the relative magnitude of subjects’ attentional distribution changed when they had restricted or fuller view of the upcoming roadway. We found subjects performed better with fuller view, and that they distributed their attention in a manner that was qualitatively consistent with Miller’s (1976) predictions. Comparisons between different regions of restricted preview found subjects could shift their attention equally well to near or far preview regions. Experiment 2 manipulated subjects’ tracking style by putting them in an error minimizing or an effort minimizing mode. We examined their attentional allocation with restricted preview and failed to find support for a generalization of Miller’s (1976) model for fuller view, which predicted subjects would allocate less attention to preview when they prioritized minimizing their effort. In contrast feedback control was affected, which indicated that feedback and feedforward control may be two independent aspects of tracking control. Experiment 3 tested whether subjects’ attentional distributions changed in response to the dynamics of the vehicle being controlled. Previous researchers have found that higher derivative control systems require more anticipatory information (e.g., McRuer & Jex, 1967; Miller 1976). Subjects tracked the oncoming roadway with both a rate and a sluggish lag control dynamic. We failed to find a difference in the feedforward attentional allocation between these two system dynamics, but did find a difference in feedback control. However, combining results from these experiments with those of Jagacinski, Hammond, and Rizzi (2017), who used a position control, we determined that attention is adaptive to control dynamics and susceptible to task-relevant distractions. Overall, these results suggest that feedforward attention and feedback control contributed independently to tracking. Feedback control was more sensitively adjusted by subjects than feedforward attention. We showed that attention can be assessed from movement patterns, and that action has a strong influence on how attention is engaged during different driving conditions.
Richard Jagacinski (Advisor)
Alexander Petrov (Committee Member)
Andrew Leber (Committee Member)
Junming Wang (Committee Member)
153 p.
Cognitive Psychology; Experimental Psychology; Psychology
action; attention; driving; perceptual-motor; cognition; performance;

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Rizzi, E. (2018). The Relationship between Attention to Preview and Action during Roadway Tracking [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu153331644665238

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Rizzi, Emanuele. The Relationship between Attention to Preview and Action during Roadway Tracking. 2018. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu153331644665238.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Rizzi, Emanuele. "The Relationship between Attention to Preview and Action during Roadway Tracking." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu153331644665238

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu153331644665238
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