Effect of variable priority training on police officer driving performance and workload.

Motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of police injuries and deaths in line of duty. These crashes have been mainly attributed to the use of in-vehicle technologies while driving. Police officers receive extensive training on driving skills; however, limited training is provided on the use of in-vehicle technologies. Variable priority training (VPT) is a computer-based training that has shown promising results in improving multi-tasking performance. Eighteen police officers participated in a driving simulation study to assess the effect of VPT on officers' performance and workload. Findings suggested that although VPT was effective in improving officers' performance in dual and multi-task simulations across the training sessions, this effect was not generally transferred to driving. However, the VPT might be effective for training of high-demand situations involving pursuit driving and multiple secondary tasks. The findings can be beneficial for police agencies to improve training protocols. Practitioner summary: A driving simulation study was conducted to assess the effect of a computer-based training approach on police officers' driving performance and cognitive workload. The findings suggested that the proposed training approach might be effective for training of high-demand situations involving pursuit driving and multi-tasking.

Evaluating advanced driver-assistance system trainings using driver performance, attention allocation, and neural efficiency measures.

There are about 44 million licensed older drivers in the U.S. Older adults have higher crash rates and fatalities as compared to middle-aged and young drivers, which might be associated with degradations in sensory, cognitive, and physical capabilities. Advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) have the potential to substantially improve safety by removing some of driver vehicle control responsibilities. However, a critical aspect of providing ADAS is educating drivers on their operational characteristics and continued use. Twenty older adults participated in a driving simulation study assessing the effectiveness of video-based and demonstration-based training protocols in learning ADAS considering gender differences. The findings revealed video-based training to be more effective than demonstration-based training in improving driver performance and reducing off-road visual attention allocation and mental workload. In addition, female drivers required lower investment of mental effort (higher neural efficiency) to maintain the performance relative to males and they were less distracted by ADAS. However, male drivers were faster in activating ADAS as compared to females since they were monitoring the status of ADAS features more frequently while driving. The findings of this study provided an empirical support for using video-based approach for learning ADAS in older adults to improve driver safety and supported previous findings on older adults' learning that as age increases there is a tendency to prefer more passive and observational learning methods.