PSY 355 Psychology & Media in the Digital Age This page was last modified on October 4, 2024

Class 14: The Neuropsychology of Media • II  The Automobile as Digital Device (Outline)

• The cost of new cars are increasingly the result of the installed electronics:

• Of course, beginning in March 2020 because of the pandemic and the problem of supply chain delays, the American automobile manufacturers have had major difficulties in obtaining the computer chips necessary for their vehicles. (MotorTrend Magazine)

• Other Earlier Technologies
• 1st Car Radios (all AM) • 1930s
• 1st FM  Radios • 1950s
• Transistors in the 1950s & 1960s reduce the price of radios
• 8-Track tape players (1965) and built-in cassette tape players by the 1970s
• CD players by mid-1980s
  

The Automobile as Media Setting

2023 Honda Civic • Best Affordable Compact Car (USNWR)

MSRP of $25,050-43,295

- 7-Inch Color Touch-Screen with Apple CarPlay® and Android Auto™ Compatibility
- Bluetooth® streaming audio
- Steering-wheel-mounted audio & driving controls. All Civic steering wheels have two sets of controls. The left-hand set operates the audio system and 7-inch Driver Information Interface (DII). The Bluetooth® HandsFreeLink® and the navigation system voice-recognition button are on the left as well. The right-hand set operates the Lane Keeping Assist System11 (LKAS) Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) with Low-Speed Follow
- Bose Premium Sound System
-All systems also provide Speed-Sensitive Volume Compensation (SVC); as the car speeds up and exterior noise increases, the audio system automatically raises the music’s volume, and then lowers it as the car slows down.
- Adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning, traffic sign recognition and automatic stop system.

2023 Kia Telluride • Best Midsize SUV (USNWR)

 MSRP = $35,690-52,785

- 12.3-inch Touchscreen Display w/ Navigation, Kia Connect & SiriusXM® Satellite Radio
- Rear-View Monitor w/ Dynamic Parking Guidance
- Apple CarPlay® & Android Auto™
- Bluetooth® Wireless Technology w/ Multi-Device Connectivity
- Wi-Fi Hotspot
- Smart Cruise Control w/ Stop & Go
- USB-C Fast Charging Ports, 5

- Rear seat entertainment (RSE) center:Two monitors and two remotes. Provides USB ports. New available APP's: Pinkfong (For Kids), News (CNN, Fox News), Games. RSE currently does not support Apple CarPlay or AirPlay. [Cost: an additional $1400]

The contemporary automobile (car, wagon, SUV) serves as a hybrid media form which provides

• a means of transportation
  
• an "infotainment" or "in car entertainment" (ICE) media center with multiple entertainment components (CD, MP3 players, BluTooth, GPS navigation, DVD, game consoles, WiFi, multiple driving controls)
  

Navigation in Cars

GPS = Global Positioning System which is "a space-based satellite navigation system that provides location & time information in all weather conditions, anywhere on or near the Earth where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites" {W}

NEW: What3Words.com

• What3words divides the world into a grid of 57 trillion 3-by-3-metre squares, each of which has a three-word address. The addresses are available in forty-seven languages. [Wikipedia]

• Each what3words language uses a list of 25,000 words (40,000 in English, as it covers sea as well as land). The lists are manually checked to remove homophones and offensive words. [Wikipedia]

Traffic Fatalities & Improving Car Safety

• Death rates in 2019 were down 1.2% from 2018 and 3.1% from 2017
  
• BUT, in both 2020 & 2021 death rates increased over 2019 (18.7% higher)
  
• There were 4.8 million injuries in motor vehicle accidents in 2020 (up from 4.2 million in 2019)
  
• Traffic accidents, fatalities, and injuries cost a total of ~ $474 billion in the United States

Why are the rates of dying in traffic accidents higher in recent years than they were 8 to 10 years ago?

There are at least two hypotheses which can help explain these data:

Hypothesis 1: The growing weight of American cars is related to more lethal accidents

Hypothesis 2: American drivers are distracted by electronic devices (both handheld and on the dashboard)

Hypothesis 1

1a. American cars are becoming heavier over time




1b. Heavier American cars are much more lethal in crashes

In a very recent report in The Economist, research has pointed to the dual conclusions that (1) drivers and passengers in heavier cars like pick-up trucks are less likely to die in a crash compared to lighter cars, BUT, (2) heavier cars like pick-up trucks are far more lethal in crashes and cause much higher rates of death.

Hypothesis 2:

American drivers are distracted by electronic devices (both handheld and on the dashboard)

Distracted Driving: Measuring the Effects

• Visual Processing Competition: Driver doesn't look at road in order to look at dash-board or other device

• Manual Interference: Driver takes hands off wheel in order to manipulate a device

• Cognitive Distraction: Driver withdraws attention from processing road- and safety-related information in order to accomplish another cognitive task.

• Each of these sources acts independently and can also interact with one another.

Past research has shown

• Drivers who are using a cell phone tend to experience "inattention blindness"
  

• Drivers engaged in a second cognitive task exhibit a form of "tunnel vision"

NOTE:

• A car traveling at 60 mph travels 88 feet in 1 second and 44 feet in 1/2 second
  
• A car traveling at 30 mph travels 44 feet in 1 second and 22 feet in 1/2 second
  

Experimental Set-up Tasks

1. None: Simple driving, no other task
2. Radio: Driving while listening to a radio
3. BookOnTape: Driving while listening to a book on tape
4. Passenger: Driving while holding 10 min. conversation with passenger
5. Handheld: Driving while holding 10 min. conversation on a hand-held cell phone
6. HandsFree: Driving while holding 10 min. conversation with a hands-free cell phone
7. Speech-Text: Driving while interacting with a speech-to-text interfaced email system
8. OSPAN: Driving while performing auditory version of the OSPAN mental processing tasks (math & memorization)

  

Experiment 1: Laboratory Control (Baseline)

Experiment 2: Driving Simulator

Experiment 3: Instrumented Vehicle (in Real Life)

Some Results

The first diagram shows the time delay for  the event-related potential's P300 brain wave: a measure of cognitive difficulty and attentional loss. Remember that 1 msec = 1/1000 of a second. So, 500 msec (milliseconds) = 1/2 of a second

 

Some Other Research Findings

• Drivers who are 15–20 years of age constitute 6.4% of all drivers, but account for 10% of all motor vehicle deaths, and 14% of police-reported crashes
  

• "According to the results of a 2015 US national survey, the percentages of drivers ages 19–24 reporting engaging in the following behaviors at least once while driving in the past 30 days were as follows: 59% read a text/email, 45% typed/sent a text/email, and 77% talked on a cell phone, all increased from results of the same survey conducted in 2014 (AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, 2015)"

• In the Youth Risk Survey, 2019, teenage drivers reported significant levels of texting or emailing while driving including 31% of 16-year-olds, 51% of 17-year-olds, and 60% of 18-year-olds.

• In a naturalistic study of 83 newly licensed teenage drivers in Virginia (53% female; average age 16.5 years), researchers installed video recording, accelerometer, & GPS tracking devices to observe/record driver behavior. They found 58% of the time that drivers were engaged in at least one task secondary to driving: (1) interacting with another passenger [20%], (2), talking/singing by self with no passenger [17%], (3) attending to external distractions outside car (12%); and (4) manual cellphone use (texting/dialing/browsing 5%).
  

ABC Nightline: Caught On Tape: Teen Drivers Moments Before a Crash
(AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety YouTube: 6'45" Mar, 2015)

Let me ask you to consider the following questions:

• What are the different sources of distraction you have noted in driving (beyond texting itself)

• What have you seen happening, e.g., with your parents, your friends, others?

• Is there anything that you think could convince people to drive in a safer way?

This page was first posted on 2/27/14