Question: does your work include to help understand brain activities?

Mark Hill answered on 16 Mar 2011:

Hello Albert19,

I think that my work relies more on the understanding of the human brain, how it works, and how we manage information received, in a driving context.

For example bottom-up processing of information, on what our senses detect, and top-down processing of information is where we deal with a driving situation, a junction or similar, and we apply experience of driving through other junctions to that one, as a framework, or schema. It is thought that we have schemas, or schemata, for most tasks, from shopping, going to work, at work, walking into a restaurant etc..

For example, having been into a restaurant before, a schema gives you an idea that you have to be shown to a table, at some point be given a menu, order food and wait a while – usually quite a long while. Now, generally restaurants are different, but by using our schema for what to expect and do, it cuts down on decision making and time. If we didn’t have a schema, then we would treat each restaurant visit as a new experience – how do we get in, what happens next, do we sit down, or stand up, how do we get to eat etc. So the human mind is all powerful in giving us an experiential helping hand with complex situations, which means that we tend to be quicker and more efficient at tasks with experience.

I consider the psychology and physiology in applying the limitations of the human brain to deal with driving, where a crash has occurred. Why have they pulled out in front of the motorcycle, which was ‘there to be seen’ and other scenarios. A junction schema in that situation may have been for that junction where the driver only normally sees cars and bigger vehicles, not less common motorcycles. Hence they may have looked and seen the motorcycle, but the brain has applied a non-motorcycle schema to the incident and the driver has pulled out.

This whole field of driver psychology, applied to collisions, I find really interesting. It is one that I am exploring more, because I feel that it is under explored and not considered enough in collision investigations. My intended PhD project will look further about how the mind works with early judgement of vehicle types, motoring groups, and how drivers react to them. I will look at groups such as cyclists, horse riders, horse boxes, caravanners, bus drivers, van drivers, sports motorcyclists, tourer motorcyclists, 4×4 vehicles (Chelsea Tractors), taxis, to see if there are identity behaviour traits for each group.

I hope that I have explained it all in a manner that you can understand. I am sure that you, as a budding scientist, will have at least a grasp of what I have written. If not, send me another message and I will try and explain in a better manner.

What a fantastic question, on a subject that I am really keen on. One of the best questions yet. Thank you.