Discriminating cognitive processes with eye movements in a decision-making driving task.

Abstract

An experiment was conducted in a driving simulator to test how eye-movements patterns evolve over time according to the decision-making processes involved in a driving task. Participants had to drive up to crossroads and decide to stop or not. The decision-making task was considered as the succession of two phases associated with cognitive processes: Differentiation (leading to a prior decision) and Consolidation (leading to a final decision). Road signs (Stop, Priority and GiveWay) varied across situations, and the stopping behavior (Go and NoGo) was recorded. Saccade amplitudes and fixation durations were analyzed. Specific patterns were found for each condition in accordance with the associated processes: high visual exploration (larger saccade amplitudes and shorter fixation durations) for the Differentiation phase, and lower visual exploration (smaller saccades and longer fixations) for the Consolidation phase. These results support that eye-movements can provide good indexes of underlying processes occurring during a decision-making task in an everyday context.