Summary: The Importance Of Dichotic Listening

Talking on the phone puts a cognitive strain on drivers, thereby limiting their attentional resources behind the wheel. The duration of a cell phone conversation elicits more distractions on driving than peripheral factors such as holding, dialing or answering the phone. In addition, a high level of engagement in a conversation guarantees more inattention than simple dialogue, which triggers fewer deviations from one’s lane. The complexity of a phone call may vary from a controversial topic to a work-related discussion; in any of these cases the person displays intense emotion that contributes to neglectful driving. Deviating our concentration to a context other than our surroundings involves a type of selective attention known as dichotic listening, in which people notice little to no information from their disregarded ear. This is a potential menace in the sense that as people perceive the auditory message at the other end of the line, they often …show more content…
This is likely because they have witnessed others driving carelessly, but have to perceive any faults they may have made while driving, failing to process these faults leads to overconfidence, even after shown data proving otherwise as shown in (Horrey , Lesch, Garabet, 2007.) In this two hour study, participants were first asked to rate their ability to drive while doing a distractive task, such as using their cellphone, and then rate other’s abilities. The participants were asked to drive within a track which was pre-built with experimental zones, in which the drivers were to perform a task which consisted of both mental math and verbalization. In one section the task was done using a dial phone, in the other a hands free headset was used. In the end the data showed that participants overestimated their own abilities when it came to distracted