Esko Keskinen

FROM CONTROL OF THE VEHICLE TO PERSONAL SELF-CONTROL; BROADENING THE PERSPECTIVES TO DRIVER EDUCATION

The objective is to formulate guidelines and goals for future development in the area of driver training and education. The content of this paper is not empirical, but merely an analytical summary or review. A four-level descriptive model is presented in which driver behaviour is conceptualised as a hierarchy, in which the goals and motives of the driver play an essential role. The recent constructivist ideas in mainstream pedagogy and psychology of learning are combined with a hierarchical approach to driver behaviour. A comprehensive framework for goals and contents of driver education (GDE framework) is presented. Two main conclusions can be drawn. Firstly, the conceptual analysis points towards a need to emphasise the motivational aspects in driver education more than it is done at present. Secondly, in order to reach the goals, pedagogical methods should be re-evaluated. For example, active learning methods and use of self-reflection should be promoted in driver education.

Effects of acoustic environment on work in private office rooms and open-plan offices – longitudinal study during relocation

The aim was to determine how the perceived work environment, especially acoustic environment, and its effects differed in private office rooms and in open-plan offices. The subjects consisted of 31 workers who moved from private office rooms to open-plan offices and who answered the questionnaire before and after the relocation. Private office rooms were occupied only by one person while open-plan offices were occupied by more than 20 persons. Room acoustical descriptors showed a significant reduction in speech privacy after relocation. The noise level averaged over the whole work day did not change but the variability of noise level reduced significantly. Negative effects of acoustic environment increased significantly, including increased distraction, reduced privacy, increased concentration difficulties and increased use of coping strategies. Self-rated loss of work performance because of noise doubled. Cognitively demanding work and phone conversations were most distracted by noise. The benefits that are often associated with open-plan offices did not appear: cooperation became less pleasant and direct and information flow did not change. Nowadays, most office workers, independent of job type, are located in open-plan offices without the individual needs of privacy, concentration and interaction being analysed. This intervention study consisted of professional workers. Their work tasks mainly required individual efforts, and interaction between other workers was not of primary concern, although necessary. The results suggest that the open-plan office is not recommended for professional workers. Similar intervention studies should also be made for other job types.

Does increased confidence among novice drivers imply a decrease in safety? The effects of skid training on slippery road accidents

Finnish driver training was renewed in 1990 with the inclusion of a compulsory skid training course in the curriculum. The study evaluated the renewals effect on accidents in slippery road conditions. A questionnaire was sent by mail to 41000 novice drivers who were randomly selected from the official register of driving licences. It included questions on driving exposure and the accidents the drivers had been involved in during 6-18 months following licensing. The rate of return was 74.7%. Half of the drivers had received their licence in 1989 and had, therefore, not received any skid training. The other half had received their licence in 1990 after the introduction of the skid training course. The results showed no effects of the renewal on slippery road accidents for either male or female drivers. Another questionnaire was sent to 1300 old and new curriculum drivers immediately after licensing and a second time 1/2-1 year later, both with questions about skills, worries and perceived risks regarding driving in slippery conditions. The new curriculum drivers showed higher confidence in their skills and they were less afraid to drive in slippery conditions than the old curriculum drivers. This increase in confidence as a result of skid training is discussed. It is argued that high confidence in ones personal skills does not necessarily imply negative safety. The crucial factor is how these skills are used, and for what purpose.

CONFLICTING GOALS OF SKID TRAINING

Efforts to make novice drivers drive more safely on slippery roads by means of special courses have mainly failed. In order to understand why the courses have failed, the views of instructors and students on the goals of skid training courses were compared. The importance given to anticipating vs manoeuvring skills was analysed. After completing a skid training course, students in four Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden) assessed manoeuvring skills to be equally important to anticipating skills in the courses. However, instructors assessed anticipating skills to be more important than manoeuvring skills. The differences between the assessments of instructors and students were the same in all four countries. Manoeuvring exercises are widely used in the courses although the main purpose of these courses is to develop anticipating skills. The exercises may give students the impression that manoeuvring skills are more important than anticipating skills. Manoeuvring exercises also increase their self-confidence and may lead to underestimation of the risks involved, resulting in e.g. driving at higher speed.

Acute effects of intravenously given alcohol on saccadic eye movements and subjective evaluations of intoxication

Effects of intravenously given alcohol on eye movements were analysed in ten voluntary subjects. Each subject served as his/her own control.Good correlations were found between the changes in saccade variables and subjective evaluations of alertness, eye movement control and intoxication. Interindividually, the subjective evaluation of drunkenness correlates with the alcohol effect on saccade variables better than do the other subjective variables or blood or breath alcohol concentrations.A steady decrease of mean and maximum velocity and a steady increase in the duration of saccades was observed during the alcohol infusion. The latency of saccades also increased. There was, however, a slight decrease of latency due to alcohol 15 min after the start of infusion, suggesting a biphasic effect of alcohol on saccade latency.

Performance effects and subjective disturbance of speech in acoustically different office types--a laboratory experiment.

UNLABELLED This study examined how the intelligibility of irrelevant speech, determined with the Speech Transmission Index (STI), affects demanding cognitive task performance. Experiment was carried out in a laboratory that resembled an open-plan office. Three speech conditions were tested corresponding to a private office (STI = 0.10), an acoustically excellent open office (STI = 0.35) and an acoustically poor open office (STI = 0.65). All conditions were presented at equal level, 48 dBA. The STI was adjusted by the relative levels of speech and masking sound. Thirty-seven students participated in the experiment that lasted for 4 h. All participants performed five tasks in each of the three speech conditions. Questionnaires were used to assess subjective perceptions of the speech conditions. Performance in the operation span task, the serial recall and the activation of prior knowledge from long-term memory were deteriorated in the speech condition with the highest speech intelligibility (STI = 0.65) in comparison with the other two conditions (STI = 0.10 and STI = 0.35). Unlike performance measures, questionnaire results showed consistent differences among all three speech conditions, i.e. subjective disturbance increased with ascending speech intelligibility. Thus, subjective comfort was disturbed more easily than performance. The results support the use of STI as an essential room acoustic design measure in open-plan offices. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS Reduction of speech intelligibility in office environments by proper acoustic design would be beneficial in terms of both work performance and subjective comfort. Proper acoustic design requires both the use of high acoustic absorption and an appropriate masking sound.

Acute effects of alcohol on saccadic eye movements.

Four components of 20° horizontal saccadic eye movements, i.e., latency, mean and maximum velocities, and duration were measured in 16 students under the influence of alcohol and also in a control situation. The experimental procedures were standarized and automated as much as possible. Latency (simple eye reaction time) was not influenced by alcohol in blood concentrations of 0.056–0.116%. Mean and maximum eye velocities decreased by about 9% and duration of saccades increased by 11%. The maximum changes occurred 90–120 min after the start of alcohol ingestion. The changes in velocities and durations correlated more closely with feelings of intoxication than with blood alcohol concentrations. There were great intra- and intersubject variations in reactions to alcohol. The close resemblance between the effects of certain psychotropic drugs, alcohol, fatigue, and decreased attention on eye movement control suggest that all these may act upon the same nervous structures in the brain steim.

Quantitative effects of ethanol infusion on smooth pursuit eye movements in man

The effects of intravenously administered ethanol on visuomotor performance were analyzed in 11 healthy subjects. During the rapid infusion phase the breath alcohol concentration (BRAC) rose to about 0.1% in 1 h and was kept at this level for 90 min by adjusting the infusion rate. Thereafter the infusion was stopped and eye movements were recorded for a further hour with falling alcohol concentration.Significant changes in smooth pursuit eye movements occurred during the test. The total amount of horizontal correction in pursuit of a spot moving in a circular pattern increased significantly. The increase was clearly greater when the eyes moved below the horizontal level from right to left. No significant differences were detected between the right and the left eyes.At the start of the rapid infusion the number of corrections increased until their maximum value/cycle. Thereafter the increase in the total amount of correction was due to the increase in the amplitude of single corrections. The correction curves closely followed venous blood alcohol concentration curves but were clearly different from breath alcohol concentration curves in the steady-state and in the postinfusion phase. These changes are probably due to the increasing phase lag between the eyes and the target. This in turn may depend on impaired arousal mechanism.Interindividual differences in smooth pursuit eye movements were large even in the control situation. Subjects with saccadic over- or undershoots or phase difference between the eyes tended to have more disturbed smooth pursuit eye movements, both in the control and test situations. In one “normal” subject corrective saccades were replaced by “glissadic” movements at a blood alcohol concentration level of about 0.1%. Therefore it is suggested that subjects with latent eye movement disorders are especially sensitive to the effects of ethanol.

Ethanol-induced disturbance in human arousal mechanism

The effects of intravenous ethanol on EEG were analyzed in 11 healthy subjects. During the rapid infusion phase the breath alcohol concentration (BRAC) was raised in 1 h to about 1 mg/ml and kept at this level for 90 min by adjusting the infusion rate. Thereafter the infusion was stopped and EEG was monitored for a further hour with falling alcohol concentration.At the end of the rapid infusion phase venous blood alcohol concentrations (BACs) were comparable to BRACs but during the slow infusion and the post-infusion phase BACs were always higher than the corresponding BRACs.Significant changes in EEG occurred during the test. The amplitude increased, the mean frequency decreased (after a slight initial increase in some subjects) and the desynchronization of EEG due to eye opening weakened. The changes in EEG during the slow infusion phase and after infusion paralleled the BACs whereas the BRAC values in the phases were unreliable for predicting EEG changes. In general the EEG changes were smaller when the blood and breath alcohol concentrations were rising than at the corresponding concentrations when the alcohol concentration was falling. Qualitatively the changes in EEG reactions were similar in all subjects, but quantitatively there were statistically significant interindividual differences. Subjective alertness showed a significant negative correlation with activity and a positive correlation with mobility during the test session. A significant decrease in alertness corresponded to a decrease in the desynchronization of EEG by eye opening in the slow and post-infusion phases of the test session.The results indicate that the neurophysiological effects of ethanol consist of immediate, direct effects, and late, indirect, effects which are probably mediated by metabolicneuroendocrine mechanisms in brain structures controlling EEG arousal and subjective feelings of alertness.

Relation between police image and police visibility

The purpose of this study was to build a model for the public image and visibility of the police. These variables were seen as central to successful community policing. Explanatory variables included were contacts with the police, victimisation and background characteristics of the respondents. Questionnaire data were obtained from a sample of 3271 adults (mean age 42) and 986 youngsters (mean age 15.5) in two Finnish cities. Using multi-sample structural equation modelling, a four-factor model with two image factors (Friendliness and Closeness) and two visibility factors (Patrol-Car-Related and Police-on-Foot Activities) was confirmed by the data. As hypothesised, for both adults and youngsters, seeing police-on-foot activities was positively correlated with both image factors, while seeing Patrol-Car-Related Activities was negatively correlated with police image. Relationships of explanatory variables with image factors were to a large extent but not completely mediated by the visibility factors. Some differences were found between adults and youngsters in factor means and in regression relationships. Quality of police visibility proved to be an important factor from the point of view of community policing, in which one of the main purposes is to improve the relationship between the police and the public. Copyright