Exploring the contribution of executive functions to on-road driving performance during aging: A latent variable analysis.

UNLABELLED

With the aging of the population the issue of older drivers safety has gained importance in recent years. Age-related cognitive decline is frequently cited as the main cause of unsafe driving performance in older drivers.

OBJECTIVE

The present study investigated how executive functions (EFs), measured as latent variables, are related to on-road driving performance during aging.

METHOD

One hundred and twenty-six participants aged from twenty to eighty-two, completed a two hundred and forty-seven km on-road driving test and a set of executive tasks selected to tap three often postulated EFs: inhibition (inhibiting prepotent responses), updating (updating working memory representations), and shifting (shifting task sets).

RESULTS

Confirmatory factor analysis reproduces previous results obtained by Miyake et al. (2000), Miyake and Friedman (2012) of unity and diversity of EFs in an adult life span sample. Structural equation modeling suggested that on-road driving performance was related to inhibition. Furthermore, findings indicate that the age-related driving performance decline in normal aging may be mediated by the inhibition function.

CONCLUSIONS

The results highlight the importance of a proper method to assess executive functioning in a specific domain as well as emphasising the major role of those functions in driving performance while aging.