Driving is an everyday activity that becomes more difficult with age. (Hickson, Wood, Chaparro, Lacherez & Marszalek, 2010) Older drivers have been shown to have a higher risk of auto collision-related death than other age groups. (Green, McGwin & Owsley, 2013) The ability to respond in a timely and appropriate manner to ongoing events in the environment varies with age (Campbell et al., 2015) It has been shown that even cell phone use during driving affects the safety of the driver. The number of drivers using cell phones continues to increase as time goes by. It has been proven that the reaction time to danger increases during a telephone conversation. (Collet, Guillot & Petit, 2010) Attention to auditory information has been shown to impair performance on concurrent cognitive and motor tasks. (Hickson, Wood, Chaparro, Lacherez & Marszalek, 2010) Cell phone conversations alone make drivers more likely to miss traffic signs and react more slowly to signs they can detect. Previous research indicates that when a driver becomes involved in a cell phone conversation, his or her attention is diverted from processing information in the driving environment necessary for safe driving. (Strayer & Drews, 2007) Decreased performance on a primary task is thought to occur because the additional effort associated with listening to and understanding a degraded auditory signal deprives resources of other cognitive processes (Hickson, Wood, Chaparro, Lacherez & Marszalek, 2010) Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Research shows that hearing and vision impairments are common in older adults. (Green, McGwin & Owsley, 2013) Previous research has suggested a link between hearing problems and driving difficulties in older people. These older adults with hearing impairment have been shown to have more difficulty driving in the presence of distractors than older adults with good hearing. (Hickson, Wood, Chaparro, Lacherez & Marszalek, 2010) Add a cell phone to the mix and driving conditions quickly become dangerous. The number of drivers over the age of 75 is expected to increase by 70% over the next 20 years. With the increased risk associated with older drivers, combined with the growing number of people using cell phones while driving, the safety of older drivers is becoming an even bigger concern. (Green, McGwin & Owsley, 2013) The current study aims to examine the relationship between cell phone conversations while operating a motor vehicle in older drivers. A group of older participants will be evaluated and their performance while driving with or without a mobile phone will be compared. Age is hypothesized to affect the ability to drive while talking on the phone, given previous evidence of the risks that both age and cell phone use pose while driving. Method. Participants 100 licensed older drivers will be recruited to participate through radio advertisements. Participants must be at least 65 years of age, current drivers and legally eligible to drive. Participants will participate in two testing sessions. The first will be a session where demographic information and assessments of vision, cognition and hearing will be collected. The second session will be a driving evaluation on a closed road. All participants will be provided with a full explanation of the experimental procedures and will be given written informed consent, with the option to withdraw from the trial.
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