Measuring the three attentional networks in a vigilance context and their relationship with driving behaviour (medición de las tres redes atencionales en un contexto de vigilancia y su relación con la conducción de vehículos)

Resumen

Driving a vehicle is a complex multi-tasking activity, in which all the cognitive resources should be applied in a coordinated way to arrive safely at our destination. Among the different cognitive resources, considerable research efforts have been dedicated to understanding the role that the attentional system plays in driving behaviour and accident occurrence. In fact, driver distraction and inattention is considered to be one the main factors explaining road traffic casualties, and its negative influence is expected to increase in forthcoming years as a consequence of the proliferation of some potentially distracting in-vehicle technologies (e.g., Regan, Hallett, & Gordon, 2011). As the result of more than a decade of neurocognitive research on human attention, a quick and easy computer-based task aiming to measure participants¿ performance in some basic components of attention has been carefully designed. The original task is known as the Attention Networks Test or ANT (Fan, McCandliss, Fossella, Flombaum, & Posner, 2002) and is based on Michael Posner and his collaborators¿ neurocognitive model of human attention (i.e., the three attentional networks model; Posner, 1994; Posner & Petersen, 1990). This model proposes the existence of three relatively independent neural networks (alerting, attentional orienting and executive control networks) that are responsible for controlling the different attentional functions. The ANT aims to provide separate measures of the functioning of each attentional network. This doctoral dissertation analyses the influence of different attentional functions (such as executive control, attentional orienting and both phasic and tonic alertness) on driving behaviour. The starting point is an attempt to modify a laboratory task, the Attention Networks Test, by adding a measure of vigilance performance, since this attentional function may play a crucial role in driving. Further evidence of the validity of the new vigilance score will then be obtained from a sleep deprivation study. Next, the attentional scores obtained in the laboratory will be compared with different driving behaviour outcomes, such as self-report data provided by driver behaviour questionnaires and, finally, participants¿ performance in a driving simulator. In Study 1 (Roca, Castro, López-Ramón, & Lupiáñez, 2011), the Attention Networks Test for Interactions and Vigilance, or ANTI-V, is proposed. This test provides the original ANT with a direct measure of vigilance and the relationship between this measure and other alternative indirect indices is then analysed. The results suggest that the ANTI-V is useful to achieve a direct measure of vigilance and thus could be considered as a new tool available in cognitive, clinical or behavioural research for analysing vigilance in addition to the usual phasic alertness, attentional orienting and executive control scores. Other alternative indices (such as global reaction time and global accuracy averaged across conditions) are only moderately associated with a direct vigilance measure. Thus, although they may be to some extent related to participants¿ vigilance levels, they cannot be used in isolation as appropriate indices of vigilance. Also discussed is the role played by these global measures, which have been previously associated with some performance measures in applied areas (such as driving performance) in the ANT task . The main aim of Study 2 (Roca, Fuentes et al., 2011) is to obtain further evidence of the validity of the vigilance measure from the ANTI-V and also to analyse the influence of sleep deprivation on attentional functioning. To achieve these objectives, the attentional test was applied in a 24-hour sleep deprivation study. Results reveal that sleep deprivation affects both tonic and phasic alertness: vigilance performance deteriorated, while a warning tone was helpful in increasing participants¿ alertness, resulting in a slightly faster RT and, in particular, fewer errors. Additionally, the reorienting costs of having an invalid spatial cue were reduced after sleep loss. Based on these results and on evidence from previous studies, it is suggested that sleep deprivation may be more detrimental to the endogenous components of attentional orienting while the exogenous components are more resistant. Also, no sleep deprivation effect on the executive control measure was found in the present study, possibly due to the increased demands on cognitive control required by the ANTI-V. Finally, further evidence is provided of the usefulness of the ANTI-V as an attentional task that assesses vigilance together with phasic alertness, attentional orientation and executive control functioning. In Study 3 (Roca, Lupiáñez, López-Ramón, & Castro, 2011), the feasibility of the Driver Behaviour Questionnaire (DBQ) to study driver distraction and inattention using the ANTI-V is discussed. The DBQ is one of the tools most widely used to study drivers¿ attentional lapses and other types of aberrant behaviour. In this study, the relationships between the DBQ and both the ANTI-V and a self-reported measure of cognitive failure (the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire, CFQ) are analysed. Results show that attentional lapses are negatively associated with vigilance and positively associated with cognitive failure. Other types of aberrant behaviour in driving (driving errors, traffic violations and aggressive behaviours) were not found to be related to any attentional performance index (executive control, attentional orienting, phasic or tonic alertness), whereas their relationship with cognitive failure was significant but more moderate (except for DBQ-Errors, which was also highly correlated). Overall, results are consistent with the idea of DBQ-Lapses being related to driving distraction and inattention, and suggest that this subscale could be a useful tool in road safety research to study vigilance-related driving behaviour. Further evidence with improved versions of the DBQ or alternative questionnaires would be helpful to clarify whether proneness to attentional lapses while driving may be associated with crashes. Additionally, a higher tendency to make cognitive errors in everyday life has been associated with a higher attentional orienting effect (more reorienting costs) and a worse vigilance performance (lower hits), which is consistent with the suggestion that high-CFQ participants fail to ignore automated actions. Finally, Study 4 (Roca, Crundall, Moreno-Ríos, Castro, & Lupiáñez, 2011) aims to assess the influence of individual differences in the functioning of the three attentional networks (alerting, attentional orienting and executive control networks) when drivers have to deal with some common hazardous situations (for example, when an oncoming car or a pedestrian unexpectedly crosses their trajectory). Multiple measures of participants¿ attentional functioning were obtained from the ANTI-V. These measures were compared to performance in a driving simulator where different types of hazardous situation were presented. Correlation and linear regression analyses revealed significant associations between individual attentional measures and driving performance in specific traffic situations. In particular, a higher attentional orienting score on the ANTI-V was associated with safer driving in situations where a single precursor anticipated the hazard source, whereas in complex situations with multiple potential hazard precursors, higher orienting scores were associated with delayed braking. Additionally, partial evidence of a relationship between crash occurrence and the functioning of both the executive control and the alerting networks was found. To summarise, this doctoral dissertation presents a series of four studies that will provide additional evidence to discuss the influence of different attentional functions on driving behaviour. A new version of the ANT has been developed including an extra vigilance (tonic alertness) performance score in addition to the usual phasic alertness, attentional orienting and executive control scores (ANTI-V). Once the new vigilance score has been validated in a sleep deprivation study, the multiple attentional measures from the ANTI-V are then compared with different driving behaviour outcomes, such as the Driving Behaviour Questionnaire (DBQ) and participants¿ performance in a driving simulator presenting common hazardous situations. Thus, this work starts in the laboratory and then takes advantage of different driving behaviour measures to analyse how individual differences in attentional functioning can influence drivers¿ performance. Accordingly, it is suggested that the current research may provide some insights into the theoretical grounding of the measures of the three attentional networks and may also improve our understanding of the driving task, which would be of interest to both theorists on attention and applied psychologists in the field of driving. REFERENCES - Fan, J., McCandliss, B.D., Sommer, T., Raz, A., & Posner, M.I. (2002). Testing the efficiency and independence of attentional networks. Journal of Cognitive Neurosciences, 14(3), 340¿347. - Posner, M. I. & Petersen, S. E. (1990). The attention system of the human brain. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 13, 25-42. - Posner, M.I. (1994). Attention: the mechanism of consciousness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 91(16), 7398-7402 - Regan, M.A., Hallett, C., & Gordon, C.P. (2011). Driver distraction and driver inattention: Definition, relationship and taxonomy. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 43, 1771¿1781 - Roca, J., Castro, C., López-Ramón, M.F., & Lupiáñez, J. (2011). Measuring vigilance while assessing the functioning of the three attentional networks: The ANTI-Vigilance task. Journal of Neuroscience Methods, 298(2), 312-324. - Roca, J., Crundall, D., Moreno-Ríos, S., Castro, C., & Lupiáñez, J. (2011). Individual differences in the functioning of the attentional networks influence drivers¿ performance when dealing with simulated hazardous traffic situations. Manuscript submitted for publication. - Roca, J., Fuentes, L., Marotta, A., López-Ramón, M.F., Castro, C., Lupiáñez, J., & Martella, D. (2011). The effects of sleep deprivation on the attentional functions and vigilance. Manuscript submitted for publication. - Roca, J., Lupiáñez, J., López-Ramón, M.F., & Castro, C. (2011). Are drivers¿ attentional lapses (DBQ) associated with the functioning of the attentional networks (ANTI-V) and cognitive failure (CFQ)?. Manuscript submitted for publication.