U of A PhD student researching effect negative and positive influences have on drivers

Research by a University of Alberta PhD student is shedding light on what could be one root cause of distracted driving, with the results of research that shows negative words, and the emotions that come with them, can cause distractions.

PhD student Michelle Chan used a driving simulator - a video game-like driving tool to test her hypothesis.

The simulator features a virtual road for test participants to drive on while navigating around day to day obstacles such as pedestrians and traffic lights and stop signs – all while plain billboards pass.

On those billboards, are negative or positive words – and it’s the negative words that the psychology student said could be behind distracted driving.

“With the negative words we found that participants drove slower, and made more lane deviations, indicating more impaired driving performance,” Chan said.

The negative words include words such as abuse, war and cancer.

The positive words like beach showed to have no effect on performance behind the wheel.

“What it suggests is that participants are looking at the negative words longer, with less focus on the driving task at hand,” Chan said.

On the average street, the lists of potential driving distractions are endless – some drivers CTV News spoke to Wednesday said other drivers, loud noises, text messages and billboards have distracted them in the past.

While police said investigators have not dealt with collisions directly related to distractions from advertisements – a spokesperson said they applaud any research being done to put the issue of distracted driving front and centre in the minds of motorists.

“It’s those few seconds where your attention is away from the road that can be disastrous,” EPS spokesperson Lisa Sobchyshyn said. “Not just for yourself, but for other people on the road.”

As for Chan’s research, she’s already working on a follow-up, by having participants wear a cap with more than 250 electrodes that monitor brain activity while they use the simulator.

Results from her follow-up research will be released at the end of February.

With files from Brenna Rose

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  As part of her research, PhD student Michelle Chan had participants use a driving simulator, which showed billboards with words that were either negative, or positive, to show what effect the words had on drivers.

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  PhD student Michelle Chan said negative words, such as abuse, war and cancer, distracted test participants while they used a driving simulator.