Understanding Driving

This book closely examines what is involved in driving. It identifies the aspects of perception, attention, learning, memory, decision making and action control which are drawn upon in order to enable us to drive, and the brain systems involved. It attempts to show how studying tasks such as driving can help to understand how these fundamental aspects of cognition combine to facilitate performance in complex everyday tasks. In doing so it shows how a very broad range of laboratory based findings can be applied, and that through our attempts to apply this knowledge to complex everyday tasks, we gain, in return, a greater understanding of fundamental aspects of human cognition. Acknowledgements. Foreword: Drivers and the Driving They Do. Assessing Distance, Speed and Time. Motor Responses and Behavioural Repertoires. Combining Perceptual-motor skills. Attention, Automaticity and Distraction. Learning, Instruction and Training. Memory for Driving. When Driving is Dangerous: Arousal, Assessment, and Hazard Perception. Appraisal, Efficacy and Action. Neurological Damage, Disease and Driving. Towards a Cognitive Account of Driver Behaviour. References.