Licentiatavhandling (sammanfattning) Göteborg : Chalmers tekniska högskola, 2018

Introduction: Safe driving requires drivers to look at relevant information in the traffic environment and react in time in case a critical event arises. Concerns exist that cognitively loading tasks might interfere with drivers’ abilities to do this. Studies on the effects of cognitive tasks on driver behaviours are however ambiguous and incomplete. The recently formulated cognitive control hypothesis might be able to explain some of the inconsistencies. Objectives: The aim of this thesis is to better understand the effect of cognitive tasks on response times in unexpected lead vehicle braking scenarios and on glance behaviour in traffic environments with potential threats in off-path locations. Effects are studied both at aggregated levels and with higher temporal resolution. Method: A series of experiments were conducted in an advanced driving simulator.