Modeling one-choice and two-choice driving tasks.

An experiment is presented in which subjects were tested on both one-choice and two-choice driving tasks and on non-driving versions of them. Diffusion models for one- and two-choice tasks were successful in extracting model-based measures from the response time and accuracy data. These include measures of the quality of the information from the stimuli that drove the decision process (drift rate in the model), the time taken up by processes outside the decision process and, for the two-choice model, the speed/accuracy decision criteria that subjects set. Drift rates were only marginally different between the driving and non-driving tasks, indicating that nearly the same information was used in the two kinds of tasks. The tasks differed in the time taken up by other processes, reflecting the difference between them in response processing demands. Drift rates were significantly correlated across the two two-choice tasks showing that subjects that performed well on one task also performed well on the other task. Nondecision times were correlated across the two driving tasks, showing common abilities on motor processes across the two tasks. These results show the feasibility of using diffusion modeling to examine decision making in driving and so provide for a theoretical examination of factors that might impair driving, such as extreme aging, distraction, sleep deprivation, and so on.