REALLY SCARY TV show!

Just saw a pretty terrifying TV program, PBS's MotorWeek, believe it or not.

Take a look:

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An excerpt: =====================================================================17-year old Joseph Biondo says he knows texting while driving is not a safe thing to do.

BIONDO: "It distracts your eye from the road; you pay less attention to what's going on around you."

But he does it anyway. ====================================================================== I was going out but I think I'll go hide under the bed instead...

Reply to
XS11E
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It's interesting the perspective people take on this. You've seen those Allstate commercials..."when multitasking, a driver is xx percent more likely to be involved in an accident."

I like to take it to a deeper level...psychology! Woot! My major has application!

The problem with this kind of multitasking comes down to two major issues: the size of the corpus collosum and the cognitive space of the individual. The former is just a big bundle of nerves that pass information from one side of the brain to the other. It's thicker in women...actually for a bit more on this, with a laugh and some interesting thoughts on education, check out this:

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The latter (cognitive space), which I know much more about, is the idea that we only have a certain amount of "room" in our consciousness for ideas. Every individual has their own amount and type of space. The amount of space that something takes up depends on how good we are at it, how important it is to us, and how salient it is to us. We have to have these requirements because we are, as a race, "cognitive misers." We don't have enough cog. space to, for example, take in every single detail of the rooms around us at all times. WE jsut can't do it, we get overwhelmed. So we filter to salient stimuli. Then we prioritize with importance. Then the things we're good at take less concentration than the things we utterly suck at.

So imagine yourself behind the wheel. What's salient to you? Okay, the wheel itself, maybe the radio and your iPod (or other music controlling device), the road up to twelve seconds in front of you and slightly to each side, maybe even occasionally your mirrors. If your phone rings/buzzes, it becomes salient too. Believe it or not, most drivers place a lot of importance on how they drive. It's a mix of a)safety and b)socialization. the (b) function there is because society places a lot of value on "good" drivers, though the definition is unfortunately different from person to person. But look around, you're probably not noticing: the carpeting in the car, each tree that goes by, the colors of the shutters you pass, and so on and so on. And why bother? They're not important! See how this works?

Now the phone rings. Suddenly both its salience and importance shoot way up in your world, matching perhaps...your driving. But here's the thing...if you're good at driving (as most of us probably are, with such an interest in cars), *it's probably OK to reach for the phone to read that text, or even reply to it*. You're good enough to know just the right moment to look away, where nothing will change on the road. You know how to handle the cognitive pressure. Then again, some of you might be old enough that you're particularly bad at texting. Then...you might have a problem. With young, first- and second-year drivers, the opposite is true. They're *incredible* at texting...but they honestly just don't have the skills driving to reduce the available cognitive space.

This may sound like an argument to let everyone do both, and it's probably not a problem. Well, no. Given the pressure, we do the easier task better and faster, and the hard task worse. For you, that's okay. For them, it's deadly. I'd rather screw up a text than driving any day. Tell your kids to keep their eyes on the road. ;-)

Then again, I'm of the texting generation, AND I'm a good driver. I guess I have more available cognitive space than you!!!

Thoughts?

-r0ll

Reply to
r0lliSl1fe

No, you don't. Driving in traffic takes 100% of the attention of the most capable driver, anything less explains why there are almost 40,000 traffic fatalites a year in the USA. Even devoting 100% of your attention on driving does not guarantee you won't have an accident but devoting less than 100% just ups the odds.

Reply to
XS11E

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