A Validation of Subsidiary Reaction Time Against Detection of Roadside Obstacles during Prolonged Driving∗

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Abstract
Indirect psychological or physiological measures of driving performance are often used without supporting evidence, or even comment, on their validity. In this validation the performance of ten subjects on a subsidiary reaction time (RT) task and a visual detection task was correlated. On the RT task, 93 dB auditory signals were presented with an average intersignal interval of SO s. On the detection task, the subjects had to brake as fast as possible when they perceived a 40 × 40 cm obstacle at the side of the road. Over the test of three hours, in night driving conditions on a closed 5 km track, the correlation between group averages was —0.78 and the average within-subject correlation was —0.47. From these results, and a discussion of the predictive and the construct validity of the RT-task, it is concluded that subsidiary RT may be used as a valid indicator of changes in efficiency of driving performance.