Daniel Willingham--Science & Education
Hypothesis non fingo
  • Home
  • About
  • Books
  • Articles
  • Op-eds
  • Videos
  • Learning Styles FAQ
  • Daniel Willingham: Science and Education Blog

Texting and driving--not "It can wait," but "turn it off." 

5/23/2016

 
Texting while driving is banned in 46 states.

It makes you wonder what's on the minds of the legislators in the other 4 states, like the old Trident ads that claimed "4 out 5 dentists recommend sugarless gum"--what the hell is that fifth dentist thinking? But I digress.

Compliance is a problem, however. The ad campaign implores: "It can wait." That's meant to keep us from peeking at the screen when we hear that ping.
Picture
One might take this advice as an indication that driving will not be disrupted by an incoming text message so long as you don't answer it. That might be the case if the distracting part of the message were the notification itself, but that's probably not the problem. The notification is, after all, quite brief. The bigger problem may be persistent thoughts after the notification, especially 

wondering who texted you and why, and also what psychologists call prospective memory--reminding yourself that you have an unchecked message and that you ought to check it when you stop driving.

This account seems especially plausible in light of the data showing that talking on a hands-free cell phone is just has distracting as talking on a hand-held device (Horrey & Wickens, 2006). The overt activity (holding the phone, checking the message) may be less important than the unobservable mental activity. A recent study offered support for this hypothesis, examining the consequences to attention of refraining from checking a message or call. 

Cary Stothart and colleagues asked subjects to perform a simple, but attention-demanding lab task. A digit appeared every 900 ms, and subjects were to press a button as quickly as possible when it did...except if the digit was a 3.
Picture
Subjects performed a few practice trials to be sure they understood the task, and then performed two blocks of 360 trials each. 

There were three conditions. Some subjects received four text messages on their phone during the second block of trials, some received phone calls, and the third group served as a control. 

A unique and clever feature of the study is that subjects were unaware of its purpose. They were asked for their cell phone number along with other information as part of the study; the program controlling the attention task contained a script that executed the calls or texts. The program also assigned subjects to condition randomly, so the experimenter did not know in advance which condition the subject would be in. 

An experimenter remained in the room, seated behind the subject, to monitor whether the subject actually checked his or her phone, and to monitor whether the phone was off or silenced. (Each was seldom the case.)

The data showed, as expected, that unanswered calls and text notifications led to performance decrements. One measure is the probability of pressing the button when a 3 appears, shown below.
Picture
These are errors, so taller bars represent worse performance.
It's typical to make more errors in the second block of trials--it's just hard to maintain focused attention for a long time--and control subjects show that pattern. But the increase is greater for the subjects receiving phone or text notifications. 

Another way to measure attention in this task is the frequency of very fast response times. If a subject doesn't really evaluate the digit, he or she can fall into a rhythm of pushing the button more or less in sync with the appearance of the digit, because its timing is predictable. The frequency of this sort of response increased in block 2 for the call and the text conditions. 
An important feature of the data was that the distraction effect was as great when the phone was ringing as when it was not. That supports the interpretation that the detriment is not so much the distraction of the notification, but thoughts about who might be contacting you.

The authors did not include a condition that would really help support their interpretation. They ought to have people perform this task in pairs. If my cell phone rings it ought to distract me, but have little impact on you, because you won't wonder who is trying to make contact.

How detrimental this distraction effect would be to driving is hard to say; obviously some driving conditions (a straight, empty interstate) are less demanding than others (Boston rush-hour in a snowstorm). Still, the impact on overall accident rates is predictable. Even a small distraction effect, multiplied by the number of driving hours in this and other countries where smartphones are the norm, means more accidents.

If we really want people to refrain from texting while driving, "turn it off," is better advice than "it can wait."

I doubt, however, that even well-intentioned drivers will remember to do so. The solution would be greater use of existing apps that block texting while driving. 

Comments are closed.

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

    RSS Feed


    Purpose

    The goal of this blog is to provide pointers to scientific findings that are applicable to education that I think ought to receive more attention.

    Archives

    July 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    November 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    December 2015
    July 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    January 2015
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012

    Categories

    All
    21st Century Skills
    Academic Achievement
    Academic Achievement
    Achievement Gap
    Adhd
    Aera
    Animal Subjects
    Attention
    Book Review
    Charter Schools
    Child Development
    Classroom Time
    College
    Consciousness
    Curriculum
    Data Trustworthiness
    Education Schools
    Emotion
    Equality
    Exercise
    Expertise
    Forfun
    Gaming
    Gender
    Grades
    Higher Ed
    Homework
    Instructional Materials
    Intelligence
    International Comparisons
    Interventions
    Low Achievement
    Math
    Memory
    Meta Analysis
    Meta-analysis
    Metacognition
    Morality
    Motor Skill
    Multitasking
    Music
    Neuroscience
    Obituaries
    Parents
    Perception
    Phonological Awareness
    Plagiarism
    Politics
    Poverty
    Preschool
    Principals
    Prior Knowledge
    Problem-solving
    Reading
    Research
    Science
    Self-concept
    Self Control
    Self-control
    Sleep
    Socioeconomic Status
    Spatial Skills
    Standardized Tests
    Stereotypes
    Stress
    Teacher Evaluation
    Teaching
    Technology
    Value-added
    Vocabulary
    Working Memory