Fatigue and individual differences in monotonous simulated driving

This study aims at evaluating personality predictors of driver fatigue. Individual differences in subjectʹs performance are well documented in vigilance studies. Since monotonous highway driving can be seen as a vigilance task, it is possible that these differences materialize in this context and explain a portion of fatigue-related driving errors and accidents. Fifty-six male subjects drove for two 40 min periods on a straight highway. Road environment was repetitive and monotonous in one condition (road A), whilst visual elements aiming to disrupt monotony were presented in the other one (road B). Multiple regression analyses showed that sensation seeking, and more specifically the Experience Seeking (ES) dimension, are predictive of the standard deviation of steering wheel movements, a performance measure used to assess driver fatigue. ES explains 12.3% of the observed variance on road A and 8% on road B. An interaction effect was also obtained between extraversion and sensation seeking on road A, where sensation seeking explained 26% of the observed variance, but only for the more extraverted subjects. Results also indicate that subjects who report falling asleep at the wheel in the past tend to be high sensation seekers. Implications in terms of driver evaluation and management are discussed