Cell Phone Users Beware: Talking And Listening Impairs Your Ability To Drive Safely

Almost 100 students took experiments in which they drove virtualcars. While driving they had to provide answers about the layout ofbuildings on their campus, or check that statements made by othersabout relative positions of building were correct. The researchersmonitored various aspects of their driving performance while theyperformed these tasks.

They showed that both speaking and listening had detrimentaleffects on driving. Participants were poorer at maintaining a stablespeed, or keeping a constant distance between themselves and othertraffic than when only driving. Paradoxically, there was someindication that when drivers had to speak while driving, their lanecontrol increased even though speed control decreased.

Before this research the expectation was that speaking would bemore detrimental than listening, because speaking is often thought tobe a more complex task. "Unexpectedly we found that speaking andlistening had very similar detrimental effects," says lead author TateKubose, a postdoctoral fellow working in the Beckman Institute forAdvanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois. "Theseresults challenge the widespread presumption that production is harderthan comprehension, and the expectation that talking while driving isnecessarily more disruptive than listening," says Dr Kubose.

These results support the growing body of data suggesting thatit is the cognitive task of conversing via phone, in addition to thephysical task of handling the equipment, that impedes a person'sability to drive safely.

Notes to Editors:
Tate T. Kubose, The Effects of SpeechProduction and Speech Comprehension on Simulated Driving Performance;Journal of Applied Cognitive Psychology 2005, DOI: 10.1002/acp.1164

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