Relationships between Driver Errors and Delay Discounting in a Simulated Driving Task
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Relationships between Driver Errors and Delay Discounting in a Simulated Driving Task Paul Romanowich 1
& Qian
Chen 2 & Shouhuai Xu 3
# Association for Behavior Analysis International 2020
Abstract The majority of vehicle accidents are attributable to driver error, such as substance use, distractions, fatigue, speeding, and driving experience. Many of these driver errors are also associated with delay discounting, where individuals that excessively devalue a reward are more likely to use substances such as alcohol, cigarettes, and cocaine, and text-while-driving. The current study sought to examine a more direct association between delay discounting and driver error by providing 50 participants with a series of simulated driving tasks, along with measuring their delay discounting rates. A median-split for delay discounting rates showed that participants with high-delay discounting rates made significantly more total errors for simple driving tasks (e.g., braking and one-lane change) early during the simulation, relative to participants with low-delay discounting rates. On the other hand, high-delay discounting participants continued to make more total errors for a more complicated two-lane change driving task after multiple trials, relative to low-delay discounting participants. These results support the idea that delay discounting is a transdisease process that can significantly negatively affect a large range of health-related behaviors, including driver errors. Treatment implications for reducing driver errors are discussed. Keywords Impulsivity . Security . Transportation . Vehicles
Delay discounting describes how quickly a reward, such as money, loses value as a function of time (Madden & Bickel, 2010). Individuals who prefer smaller, sooner The authors would like to thank Gustavo Chavez and Jorge Castillo for computer programing, participant recruitment, and conducting the study with participants. Participant compensation was supported by a San Antonio Life Sciences Institute (SALSI) Cluster for Excellence grant to Drs. Xu and Chen.
* Paul Romanowich [email protected]
1
Department of Psychology, Gonzaga University, 502 East Boone, Spokane, WA 99258, USA
2
Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, USA
3
Department of Computer Science, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, USA
Perspectives on Behavior Science
rewards to larger, delayed rewards discount value more steeply than individuals who prefer larger, delayed rewards. Thus, delay discounting is a measure defined by how steeply value decreases as a function of increasing delays. Delay discounting is significantly associated with several addictive behaviors, such as alcohol, cigarette, and cocaine use (MacKillop et al., 2011), where individuals using these substances discount rewards more steeply than former and/or nonusing individuals do. Researchers have begun describing steep discounting as a transdisease process, given the ubiquity of this association between substance use
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