Effects Of Texting On Driving And Driving

Attention is being able to select certain aspects of an environment or certain thought. However, attention in multitasking maybe be difficult to achieve as attention can either be selective or limited. When attention is selective it to focus on one stimuli while rejecting other stimuli. On the other hand, when attention can also be limited to the capacity it can retain information. Therefore, dividing attention to two task can lead to negative consequences. A divided attention activity often experience in the real world is driving and texting at the same time. Therefore, due to restrictions in attention, sending text message impairs driving performance. Gordon Rumschlag “et al.”, The effects of texting on driving performance

However, divided attention in driving can also be due to the phone the person has. According, to Thomas McWilliams, Bryan Reimer, Bruce Mehler, Johnathan Dobres, and Joseph F. Couglins, in “Effects of Age and Smartphone Experience on Driver Behavior during Address Entry a Comparison between a Samsung Galaxy and Apple iPhone,” state that the type of phone that an individual using while driving has an effect to the level of road distractions. The purpose of this experiment was to determine if there was an impact to road glances in both visual and auditory analysis. To understand if auditory and visual interactions would be the same for both phone types. Lastly, to determine if phone type had an effect to the driving demand. Therefore, the hypothesis was to determine if subject own cell phone would have a lower distraction rate than unfavorable cell phones. The dependent variables in this experiment were two different cell phone which were Samsung Galaxy S4 and Apple iPhone 5s. While, the independent variable was the personal phone of the participant. To start this experiment each participant was asked to take a questionnaire and consent form. Then the participants were asked to arrive to the driving simulator room and adjust their seat. Once, they were adjusted they were asked to drive two miles in order to become familiar with the road. This experiment was broken down into four blocks. Two

So when driving a car and texting at the same time it can lead to impair driving performance due to many external factors that affect our automatic process and controlled process. For example, driving in a common road may become automatic, however, when being faced with obstacles on the road we have never seen can cause it to become a controlled process. The KELLOG states, that basic driving skills have to become automatic in order to be able to focus on the road. Therefore, when sending a text message while driving the individual is focusing all his or her attention to the text message. When one task demands all the attention than other task will be attenuated such as the ability to drive safely. Even though, Thomas McWilliams “et al.”, suggested that texting and using your phone impair driving skills they also supported the idea that when an action becomes automatic it becomes easier but not never proficient. Such as the younger drivers are able to text while they drive because they recognize how their phone works. However, when placed with an unfamiliar phone they drove off the road at a higher rate than with their own phone. Therefore, regardless of what phone an individual uses or how familiar they are to their devices or road the chances of driving of the road due to cell phone uses are