How is Driving-Related Attention in Driving with Visual Secondary Tasks Controlled? Evidence for Top-Down Attentional Control

This chapter considers attention in driving as controlled through three processes: bottom-up control, top-down control and explorative perception. the theoretical background for the three processes is provided. In driving with a visual secondary task, attention is supposed to be mainly controlled through top-down processes, which direct attention to previously selected, driving-relevant parts of the environment. In a driving simulator study, the phenomenon of change blindness is used as a method to assess the focus of attention. In drives with defined and controlled situational conditions, the hypothesis is that, when driving with visual secondary tasks, drivers direct their driving-related attention through top-down processes primarily to driving relevant parts of the scene. Furthermore, the influence of bottom-up controlled attention is investigated. Results for 16 subjects showed the expected influence of relevance on the amount of change blindness. The implications of the results for the assumed attentional processes and their contribution to perception in driving with visual secondary tasks are discussed.