Learning the Lane Change Task: comparing different training regimes in semi-paced and continuous secondary tasks

For road safety it is paramount that distraction by in-vehicle systems is limited. To reach this aim the Lane Change Task (LCT; Mattes, 2003) was developed. It is used as a test procedure to measure distraction due to secondary tasks in driving. The LCT is implemented as an ISO standard (ISO 26022: 2010) with the aim to provide an objective criterion for designing human-machine interactions (HMI) in a way which is not detrimental to driving. As different baseline performance in the LCT could not be sufficiently explained in recent studies, comparisons of different training regimes were conducted in order to examine training influences on LCT performance. Discriminable performance improvements in LCT were found depending on the secondary task used. A training regime of at least ten runs of LCT in single-task mode is recommended for effective training. This training should be supplemented by a training of the secondary tasks examined. An additional exploration of a dual-task situation is recommended.