Lightening the Load: Driving and cognitive training

Too Much Information

According to research, driving in many respects poses the biggest everyday challenge to cognition. Driving skills and responsive reflex require more cognitive load than virtually any other activity—even flying a plane.

Cognitive Overload

Cognitively speaking, the response required of the brain while driving overland is overwhelming: the driver must respond to instant estimates of speed and distance, as well as what is taking place in front of and around the vehicle, internally as well as externally.

The Speed of Man

The driver is also often pressed into deciding which way to go while speeding by signs amid multiple sensory inputs of sight and sound, forcing the brain to react at a speed that science says it simply has not evolved for. The brain is made to react at best to the speed at which a human being runs, not the speed of a car.

The Mechanics

Among the multiple cognitive abilities required for driving, research lists attention, perceptuomotor skills, memory, and decision-making. These partially segregated neural systems are required to interact seamlessly in the virtual blink of an eye in automobile operation.

The Solution

Driver testing programs and simulators are highly popular items right now for groups with vested interests in improving driving skills, such as insurance companies and brain injury transition centers.

Product Optimization

Tests are being conducted with the first test samples being elderly drivers to determine the most effective form and characteristics of driving simulators. The goal of program design is to predict and develop necessary individual cognitive skills on a user-by-user basis. Schools, computer software, and on-line tests will make simulation programs available on a widescale basis in the very near future.

Added Benefits

In addition to getting safely from Point A to Point B, sharpening cognition skills for driving can potentially lower fuel costs: specific driving behavior impacts fuel economy, such as removing one’s foot from the gas to stop instead of driving fast and slamming on the breaks.