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

  • Sophie Lemonnier Laboratory for Road Operations,Perception, Simulators and Simulations IFSTTAR and Université Paris 8, France
  • Roland Brémond Laboratory for Road Operations,Perception, Simulators and Simulations IFSTTAR, France
  • Thierry Baccino Laboratory of Human and Artificial Cognition, LUTIN, Université Paris 8, France
Keywords: visual attention, decision making, saccade amplitude, fixation duration, driving

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.
Published
2014-07-25
How to Cite
Lemonnier, S., Brémond, R., & Baccino, T. (2014). Discriminating cognitive processes with eye movements in a decision-making driving task. Journal of Eye Movement Research, 7(4). https://doi.org/10.16910/jemr.7.4.3
Section
Articles