Effects of Experience of the Driver on Heart-rate, Respiration-rate, and Subsidiary Reaction Time in a Three Hours Continuous Driving Task

From accident statistics a difference was hypothesized between experienced and inexperienced drivers in vulnerability to continuous driving. This difference was used as a basis for a comparison of changes in autonomic measures and reaction time over driving time. The result showed significant effects of experience on both types of measures. Heart-rate pointed to experienced and reaction time pointed to inexperienced drivers as being the most vulnerable to continuous driving. This contradiction was solved with reference to statistical data and validation of the reaction time task. Thus in this study reaction time was preferred to the autonomic measures