Interference between concurrent tasks of driving and telephoning

Abstract

224 men were given the task of judging whether to drive through gaps which might be larger or smaller than the car, and a telephoning task of checking the accuracy of short sentences. Interference between the concurrently performed tasks was investigated. Telephoning mainly impaired judgments of "impossible" gaps. The control skills employed in steering through "possible" gaps were not reliably degraded, although speed of driving was reduced. Driving increased errors and prolonged RTs on the sentence-checking task. It is concluded that telephoning has a minimal effect on the more automatized driving skills, but that perception and decision-making may be critically impaired by switching between visual and auditory inputs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved). © 1969 American Psychological Association.