MUSIC MALE AND FEMALE DRIVERS' BEHAVIOURS WHEN PERFORMING IN-VEHICLE AUDITORY TASKS

摘要

A research was conducted to observe the gender difference in drivers' behaviour while performing different-level auditory tasks in real driving situations using an Instrumented Vehicle (IV). The results showed that, as the task demand increases, there is a corresponding increase in subjective rating and a decrease in secondary task performance. Female drivers tend to adopt a conservative strategy both in baseline driving and to cope with the extra demand from the secondary tasks by driving at lower speed and putting less effort on paying attention to keep to a constant speed. The gender difference is more pronounced when the task level is higher, with females 'making more mistakes in performing the secondary tasks, and in having more large steering turn. This may suggest that the females' driving performance is impaired at higher secondary task levels. As can be seen from the results, performing auditory secondary tasks while driving can impact negatively on both genders in terms of the subjective workload, secondary task performance, and primary driving performance -but to different extents.