ABSTRACT
Car driving is a complex activity that requires one to elaborate a mental model of the road environment. This mental model (i.e. tactical representation) stems (1) from driving knowledge (stored in the long-term memory) and (2) from perceptive information (taken from road scene). A specific tool - called OSCAR - has been defined at INRETS-LESCOT in order to study drivers' mental representations, according to driving experience and secondary task effects. Two populations of drivers - Experienced versus Novices - took part in this experiment. Moreover, two experimental conditions were used: Simple Task and Dual Task conditions. The results highlight the fact that a secondary task impacts the performance of the two groups of participants. However, the experienced drivers achieved better results. OSCAR test also gives results to analyse the information integration in the drivers' mental model, according to the nature of the road elements considered (Event occurrences versus Infrastructure component), and according to their distance.
