🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <61d45c9d.0302201620.51c4cd65@posting.google.com>,
 bear_Trucker_lvr@yahoo.com (Bear Trucker Lvr) wrote:

  > And i think this study is a little biased.  they only used a 
  > handful of people in this test, instead of the thousands they 
  > should have for true results.
  > 
  > I always use a handsfree when driving.  that way i can concentrate 
  > on the road (visual indicators) not holding a block of silicon and 
  > plastic to my face.
  > 
  > 
  > Bob Ward <bob.ward@verizon.net> wrote in message 
  > news:<0v2r4v48s1443n4kquu7aq9rro9vvs8551@4ax.com>...
  > > On 14 Feb 2003 11:57:03 -0800, sams@freeddns.org (sams) wrote:
  > > 
  > > >> > Cell phone use in cars should be banned.
  > > >I dont mind as long as its used hands free. Its like talking to 
  > > >a passenger. 
  > > >
  > > >Sam.
  > > 
  > > 
  > > Recent studies indicate that this is not the case
  > > 
  > > http://www.nsc.org/library/shelf/inincell.htm

The follow column appeared in the Health/Science section of the Boston 
Globe on 2/18 (unfortunately kind of buried in the back). When I 
emailed the author that I wished there were a way to pass it along, 
s/he emailed me a copy, below.

HANG UP AND DRIVE
     Author: BY CAREY GOLDBERG Date: 02/18/2003 Page: C3 Section: 
     Health Science, The Boston Globe  (Boston, Massachusetts, USA)
SOUND MIND  (feature column title)

You know it's dangerous, but you do it anyway. The phone rings as 
you're tooling down the expressway, or you squeeze in a quick dial 
while stopped at a light and then start to chat as you drive on. No 
problem. You're still aware of the road, still a top-flight driver.

The problem is, you're not. And the limits of your brain are the reason 
why.

The trouble is not so much that your hand is occupied holding the 
phone: Even if you put down the receiver but keep talking on a 
hands-free model, you're still a menace on the road, according to a new 
study by researchers at the University of Utah. Your brain is 
over-occupied.

Neuroscientists like to exult that the brain is the most complicated 
thing on the planet, and that its connections outnumber stars in the 
universe or grains of sand on the beach.

But, when it comes to attention, it is what brain researchers call a 
"limited-capacity information processing system." That is, attention is 
a finite thing, and you can only multitask so far.

In fact, the Utah researchers found that part of the impairment of 
using a cellphone while driving is that you are not aware of your own 
impairment.

The basic problem, said David Strayer, an associate professor of 
psychology at Utah, is called "inattentional blindness."

He and his colleagues, using a $100,000 driving simulator and a $50,000 
eye-tracking device, found that even when drivers were looking right at 
something as they spoke on a hands-free cellphone, they were more 
likely not to see it.

That fits in to a long-known phenomenon: In order to really see 
something at all, you have to pay attention to it. And the more your 
attention is occupied by one thing, the more likely you are to miss 
something else.

Research on the finite nature of attention dates back decades. Just 
after World War II, Strayer said, pilots started regularly crashing 
their planes, and it turned out that if a plane's engine board is 
designed incorrectly, a pilot can be overloaded with too many tasks and 
"fail catastrophically." Anesthesiologists can get similarly overloaded 
in the operating room as they monitor multiple drugs and bodily 
functions in a patient.

The cellphone effect has been confirmed in brain-imaging studies as 
well. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon reported in mid-2001 that 
listening to complex sentences reduced the amount of brain activity 
that subjects devoted to processing a complex visual task.

At the time, Carnegie Mellon psychology professor Marcel Just said that 
hands-free cellphones failed to solve the problem because cellphone use 
doesn't justdistract the eyes, it distracts the whole brain.

So, if a hands-free cellphone is so dangerous, wouldn't a conversation 
with your buddy in the passenger seat be just as bad? Or listening to 
the radio or book on tape?

Strayer and his colleagues found no impairment from any of them. The 
radio and book results are unsurprising: Mere listening is a 
more-passive and less-demanding activity. As for conversation with a 
passenger, they are still investigating what might be at work. One 
theory is that when two people are in the car, they are both aware of 
what is happening on the road, and if the driving gets tough, the 
conversation tends to fade.

The idea of inattentional blindness is not new. In a classic 
experiment, Daniel J. Simons, an associate psychology professor at the 
University of Illinois, asked students to watch a video and count how 
often a basketball team passed the ball. They did their count, and 
noticed nothing amiss - until he played the video for them again 
without the counting task, and they burst out laughing: A gorilla had 
ventured onto the court in the middle of the video.

For some good clean fun, go to 
<http://viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/djs_lab/demos.html> and check out some 
of his lab's demo videos: It can be quite amazing what a distracted 
person fails to see.

Simons noted that researchers have not yet explored extensively whether 
there might be times when using a cellphone is safe - for example, when 
a driver is on a deserted road or in some other undemanding situation.

But come to think of it, he said, "If you're driving in Boston, there's 
probably no good time."

Carey Goldberg can be reached at goldberg@globe.com.

Carey Goldberg Health/Science reporter The Boston Globe 617-929-3077 PO 
Box 2378