Spatial reference frames and driver performance

A survey of the relationship between visual reference frame dependence and driving performance is presented. Inter-individual differences in driving are related to three spatial reference frames: visual, gravito-inertial and egocentred. Their pertinence in driving is shown both in theory and experimentally. The experiment (with 36 subjects) presented here studied the basic activity of steering control in a simulated driving task. Results showed that steering control quality (estimated by time to line crossing) was significantly better among subjects who are relatively independent of visual or egocentred reference frames.