The Effects of Age, Distraction, and Simulated Central Vision Impairment on Hazard Detection in a Driving Simulator.

Significance: Despite similar levels of visual acuity and contrast sensitivity reductions, simulated central vision impairment increased response times to a much greater extent in older than in younger participants.

Purpose: Driving is crucial for maintaining independence in older age, but age-related vision impairments and in-vehicle auditory distractions may impair driving safety. We investigated the effects of age, simulated central vision impairment, and auditory distraction on detection of pedestrian hazards.

Methods: Thirty-two normally sighted participants (16 younger and 16 older) completed four highway drives in a simulator and pressed the horn whenever they saw a pedestrian. Pedestrians ran toward the road on a collision course with the approaching vehicle. Simulated central vision impairment was achieved by attaching diffusing filters to a pair of laboratory goggles, which reduced visual acuity to 20/80 and contrast sensitivity by 0.35 log units. For drives with distraction, subjects listened to an audiobook and repeated out loud target words.

Results: Simulated central vision impairment had a greater effect on reaction times (660-millisecond increase) than age (350-millisecond increase) and distraction (160-millisecond increase) and had a greater effect on older than younger subjects (828- and 492-millisecond increase, respectively). Simulated central vision impairment decreased safe response rates from 94.7 to 78.3%. Distraction did not, however, affect safety because older subjects drove more slowly when distracted (but did not drive more slowly with vision impairment), suggesting that they might have perceived greater threat from the auditory distraction than the vision impairment.

Conclusions: Older participants drove more slowly in response to auditory distraction. However, neither older nor younger participants adapted their speed in response to simulated vision impairment, resulting in unsafe detections. These results underline the importance of evaluating safety of responses to hazards as well as reaction times in a paradigm that flexibly allows participants to modify their driving behaviors.