Hamish Jamson

Concord grape juice, cognitive function, and driving performance: a 12-wk, placebo-controlled, randomized crossover trial in mothers of preteen children

BACKGROUND Daily consumption of Concord grape juice (CGJ) over 3-4 mo has been shown to improve memory function in adults with mild cognitive impairment and reduce blood pressure in hypertensive adults. These benefits likely result from the high concentration of polyphenols in CGJ. Increased stress can impair cognitive function and elevate blood pressure. Thus, we examined the potential beneficial effect of CGJ in individuals with somewhat stressful and demanding lifestyles. OBJECTIVE We sought to examine the effects of the daily consumption of CGJ for 12 wk on cognitive function, driving performance, and blood pressure in healthy, middle-aged working mothers. DESIGN Twenty-five healthy mothers (aged 40-50 y) of preteen children who were employed for ≥30 h/wk consumed 12 ounces (355 mL) of either CGJ (containing 777 mg total polyphenols) or an energy-, taste-, and appearance-matched placebo daily for 12 wk according to a randomized crossover design with a 4-wk washout. Verbal and spatial memory, executive function, attention, blood pressure, and mood were assessed at baseline and at 6 and 12 wk. Immediately after the cognitive battery, a subsample of 17 women completed a driving performance assessment at the University of Leeds Driving Simulator. The 25-min driving task required participants to match the speed and direction of a lead vehicle. RESULTS Significant improvements in immediate spatial memory and driving performance were observed after CGJ relative to placebo. There was evidence of an enduring effect of CGJ such that participants who received CGJ in arm 1 maintained better performance in the placebo arm. CONCLUSIONS Cognitive benefits associated with the long-term consumption of flavonoid-rich grape juice are not exclusive to adults with mild cognitive impairment. Moreover, these cognitive benefits are apparent in complex everyday tasks such as driving. Effects may persist beyond the cessation of flavonoid consumption, and future studies should carefully consider the length of washout within crossover designs. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT01411631.

Human Factors of Highly Automated Driving: Results from the EASY and CityMobil Projects

This chapter reports on a series of studies on driver behavior with a highly automated vehicle, conducted as part of the European project CityMobil and the UK project EASY. Using the University of Leeds Driving Simulator, a number of urban and highway scenarios were devised, where lateral and longitudinal control of the vehicle was managed by an automated controller. Drivers’ uptake of non-driving related tasks, their response to critical events, and their ability to resume control of driving, were some of the factors studied. Results showed some differences in performance based on the road environment studied, and suggest that whilst resuming control from automation was manageable when attention was dedicated to the road, diversion of attention by secondary tasks impaired performance when manual control resumed.

Ontology for Scenario Orchestration (OSO): A Standardised Scenario Description in Driving Simulation

Due to the lack of a standard knowledge base for scenario sharing in driving simulation community and a standard data source for a new scenario control framework, Ontology for Scenario Orchestration (OSO) is developed. OSO is focused on driving context and scenario tasks, i.e., tasks that should be performed to generate intentional interactions with the participant or simulator driver. This formal description will be passed to virtual drivers who can use the relevant driving context to generate interactions that are embedded into autonomous traffic flow. As a component of a new framework for scenario control in driving simulation - SOAV (Scenario Orchestration with Autonomous simulated Vehicles), OSO has been used in two experiments with human participants based on the desktop version of UoLDS (University of Leeds Driving Simulator). A further test with VTI 1 s driving simulation software is being prepared.