A protocol to evaluate the impact of visual distractors on driving attention using a virtual reality simulator

Attention is a cognitive process essential for safe driving that requires the processing of relevant stimuli while simultaneously suppressing a large number of distractors. Visual distractions, in particular, pose a high risk due to the inherently visual nature of driving and the similarity to relevant stimuli. In this paper, we propose a protocol to evaluate the effects of different visual distractors on driving attention using a virtual reality (VR) driving simulator. The protocol is composed of multiple driving tasks in a controlled VR environment that presents relevant stimuli that resemble stop signs and irrelevant distractors of varying similarity. By measuring drivers’ reaction times and lane keeping under different experimental conditions, we aim to evaluate how the presence and similarity of distractions affect attention. The use of a virtual reality simulator allows safe and reproducible testing, overcoming the ethical and practical challenges of driving studies in real-world.