Engineering Commons^™

Ethical Decision-Making In Older Drivers During Critical Driving Situations: An Online Experiment, Amandeep Singh, Sarah Yahoodik, Yovela Murzello, Samuel Petkac, Yusuke Yamani, Siby Samuel

Psychology Faculty Publications

The present study examined the impact of aging on ethical decision-making in simulated critical driving scenarios. 204 participants from North America, grouped into two age groups (18–30 years and 65 years and above), were asked to decide whether their simulated automated vehicle should stay in or change from the current lane in scenarios mimicking the Trolley Problem. Each participant viewed a video clip rendered by the driving simulator at Old Dominion University and pressed the space-bar if they decided to intervene in the control of the simulated automated vehicle in an online experiment. Bayesian hierarchical models were used to analyze …

Engineering Countermeasures For Left Turns At Signalized Intersections: A Review, Siby Samuel, Amandeep Singh, Yusuke Yamani

Psychology Faculty Publications

Left turn crashes can impact the safety of the drivers due to the speed and angle at which they occur. Left turns are specifically reported to affect older drivers more than the other types of crashes. This paper provides a review of the existing engineering countermeasures that have been evaluated to improve driver safety at left turns. Twenty- eight studies on left turn signal displays (protected left turns, flashing yellow arrow, and digital countdown timers), intersection geometry (offset left turn lanes, diverging diamond interchange, roundabouts, exit lanes for left turn, left turn bay extension, and contraflow left turn lanes), and …

Ethical Decision Making Behind The Wheel – A Driving Simulator Study, Siby Samuel, Sarah Yahoodik, Yusuke Yamani, Krishna Valluru, Donald L. Fisher

Psychology Faculty Publications

Over the past several years, there has been considerable debate surrounding ethical decision making in situations resulting in inevitable casualties. Given enough time and all other things being equal, studies show that drivers will typically decide to strike the fewest number of pedestrians in scenarios where there is a choice between striking several versus one or no pedestrians. However, it is unclear whether drivers behave similarly under situations of time pressure. In our experiment in a driving simulator, 32 drivers were given up to 2 s to decide which group of pedestrians to avoid among groups of larger (5) or …

The Rise, Fall, And Repair Of Trust For Automated Driving Systems, Scott Mishler, Jing Chen

Psychology Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study was to investigate how human driver's trust in the automated driving system is built over time and affected by automation failure. The study expanded trust development over time by measuring trust after a practice demonstration ofthe system capabilities and after each of seven unique, sequential drives. The automation performed perfectly on six of the seven drives but made one of three different responses to a critical hazard event in the fourth drive. Depending on the error-type condition, the automation either perfectly avoided the hazard (no error), issued a takeover request (TOR), or failed to notice …

Board 141: Engineering Identity As A Predictor Of Undergraduate Students' Persistence In Engineering, Debra A. Major, Seterra D. Burleson, Xiaoxiao Hu, Kristi J. Shryock

Psychology Faculty Publications

Improving graduation rates of students who have selected and been admitted to engineering majors is a pivotal strategy in supporting national initiatives to increase the number of engineering graduates. Research suggests that the degree to which a student is attached to or belongs to engineering as a discipline better explains persistence-related outcomes than lack of interest and ability. As a result, identity frameworks have proven useful for furthering the understanding of engineering persistence. In this paper, we examine the relationship between undergraduate students’ engineering identity and persistence as an engineering major.

As part of an ongoing NSF IUSE project, a …

Evaluation Of The Effectiveness Of A Gaze-Based Training Intervention On Latent Hazard Anticipation Skills For Young Drivers: A Driving Simulator Study, Yusuke Yamani, Pinar Biçaksiz, Dakota B. Palmer, Nathan Hatfield, Siby Samuel

Psychology Faculty Publications

A PC-based training program (Road Awareness and Perception Training or RAPT; Pradhan et al., 2009), proven effective for improving young novice drivers' hazard anticipation skills, did not fully maximize the hazard anticipation performance of young drivers despite the use of similar anticipation scenarios in both, the training and the evaluation drives. The current driving simulator experiment examined the additive effects of expert eye movement videos following RAPT training on young drivers' hazard anticipation performance compared to video-only and RAPT-only conditions. The study employed a between-subject design in which 36 young participants (aged 18-21) were equally and randomly assigned to one …

Age-Related Differences In Vehicle Control And Eye Movement Patterns At Intersections: Older And Middle-Aged Drivers, Yusuke Yamani, William J. Horrey, Yulan Liang, Donald L. Fisher

Psychology Faculty Publications

Older drivers are at increased risk of intersection crashes. Previous work found that older drivers execute less frequent glances for detecting potential threats at intersections than middle-aged drivers. Yet, earlier work has also shown that an active training program doubled the frequency of these glances among older drivers, suggesting that these effects are not necessarily due to age-related functional declines. In light of findings, the current study sought to explore the ability of older drivers to coordinate their head and eye movements while simultaneously steering the vehicle as well as their glance behavior at intersections. In a driving simulator, older …

Categorizing Fetal Heart Rate Variability With And Without Visual Aids, Amanda J. Ashdown, Mark W. Scerbo, Lee A. Belfore Ii, Stephen S. Davis, Alfred Z. Abuhamad

Psychology Faculty Publications

Objective This study examined the ability of clinicians to correctly categorize images of fetal heart rate (FHR) variability with and without the use of exemplars.

Study Design A sample of 33 labor and delivery clinicians inspected static FHR images and categorized them into one of four categories defined by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) based on the amount of variability within absent, minimal, moderate, or marked ranges. Participants took part in three conditions: two in which they used exemplars representing FHR variability near the center or near the boundaries of each range, and a third …

The Effects Of External Motivation And Real-Time Automated Feedback On Speeding Behavior In A Naturalistic Setting, Ian J. Reagan, James P. Bliss, Ron Van Houten, Bryan W. Hilton

Psychology Faculty Publications

Objective: In this field experiment, the authors tested an alerting system and a monetary incentive system with the objective of reducing speeding more than 5 mph faster than the posted speed limit.

Background: Speeding is a factor in a significant number of traffic fatalities. The systems tested in this project have been evaluated outside but not within the United States. These studies indicated that similar systems led to reductions in speeding.

Method: For this study, eight vehicles were instrumented such that vehicle speed and speed limits were linked in real time. A total of 50 participants drove assigned vehicles for …

Impulsivity Like Traits And Risky Driving Behaviors Among College Students, Matthew R. Pearson, Elaine M. Murphy, Ashley N. Doane

Psychology Faculty Publications

The present study examined the predictive effects of five impulsivity-like traits (Premeditation, Perseverance, Sensation Seeking, Negative Urgency, and Positive Urgency) on driving outcomes (driving errors, driving lapses, driving violations, cell phone driving, traffic citations, and traffic collisions). With a convenience sample of 266 college student drivers, we found that each of the impulsivity-like traits was related to multiple risky driving outcomes. Positive Urgency (tendency to act impulsively when experiencing negative affect) was the most robust predictor of risky driving outcomes. Positive Urgency is a relatively newly conceptualized impulsivity-like trait that was not examined in the driving literature previously, suggesting a …