Cell Phone Use and Driving

Strayer and Johnston (2001)

• They used a driving simulator to investigate dual-task interference
• Participants were instructed to follow a target car and press 'brake' button when a red light flashed
• Reaction time and the number of misses were measured
• The results showed that driving was not disrupted by listening to the radio, but there were severe and equal impairments when talking on the phone either handsfree or handheld.
• There were twice as many signal misses and greater reaction times in both phone conditions than in the radio condition
• The difference was more pronounced when talking than when listening.

Strayer, Drews and Johnston (2003)

• This follow up study looked at how attention is affected.
• The phone conversation draws attention away from the scene, eg eye movements are not drawn to information along the route even when items are located in the centre of the visual field.
• There was failure to process and select relevant information, similarly to other dual task experiments.
• Participants had delayed reactions and more accidents when using the phone.
• They also found that there was no improvement to safety of performance when using a handsfree phone.

Strayer & Drews (2004)

• This study looked at the effect of age and found that there was no difference in performance in different age groups

Strayer, Drews & Crouch (2006)

• This study looked as the effect of alcohol by administering ethanol to the participant.
• They found there to be more aggressive driving with ethanol consumption.
• They found similar impairments in both phone and alcohol use.

However...

Drews, Pasupathi & Strayer (2008)

• They compared the effects of a cell phone, a passenger, or no distraction.
• There was a difference between the passenger and cell phone condition.