Visual attention in realistic driving situations: Attentional capture and hazard prediction

In real life, many objects catch our attention involuntarily or exogenously. Exogenous attention occurs fast and its effects are short-lived. In the laboratory, when attentional orientation is studied, both valid and invalid attentional signals are used: the valid ones direct the attention to a location where something relevant is going to appear. The invalid ones occur in a location where nothing relevant is going to happen. Usually, performance is improved when valid signals rather than invalid ones are presented. This work is novel in that it explores the effects of attentional capture and driving experience in situations of day-to-day driving while participants carry out a Hazard Prediction task. We created new Hazard Prediction (HPr) and Risk Estimation (RE) tests when driving by selecting 48 short videos recorded in a realistic way from the perspective of a car driver. We created valid and invalid trials by selecting videos in which a what?? was presented in the same spatial location as the one where the hazard was beginning to develop or in a different location. Simple situations, with only one developing hazard, were also presented. A total of 92 participants (30 experienced drivers, 32 novices and 30 with no experience) were placed in the position of the driver and answered the questions: 1) What will happen after the video is cut? 2) To what extent do you consider this situation risky? The results from the Hazard Prediction test replicate the attentional capture effect in complex driving situations, with invalid trials obtaining the worst results, followed by valid and simple ones. Participants with experience obtained better scores than novices, and novices were better than drivers without experience. No interaction between attentional orientation and experience was found, suggesting the obligatory and automatic nature of orientation processes, which do not appear to be compensated for by driving experience. No significant differences were found for the Risk Estimation test.