Effects of mobile phone use on driving performance in a multiresource workload scenario

Objective: This study explores the influence of mobile phone secondary tasks on driving from the perspective of visual, auditory, cognitive, and psychomotor (VACP) multiple resource theory, and it is anticipated to benefit the human-centered design of mobile phone use while driving.

Methods: The present study investigated 6 typical phone use scenarios while driving and analyzed the effects of phone use distractions on driving performance. Thirty-six participants were recruited to participate in this experiment. We abandoned traditional secondary tasks such as conversations or dialing, in which cognitive resources can become interference. Instead, we adopted an arrow secondary task and an n-back delayed digit recall task.

Results: The results show that all mobile phone use scenarios have a significant influence on driving performance, especially on lateral vehicle control. The visual plus psychomotor resource occupation scenario demonstrated the greatest deterioration of driving performance, and there was a significant deterioration of driving speed and steering wheel angle once the psychomotor resource was occupied.

Conclusions: Phone use distraction leads to visual, cognitive, and/or motor resource functional limitations and thus causes lane violations and traffic accidents.