Co-I Anastasopoulos is engaged in research that focuses on applied simulation and advanced statistical modeling methods to analyze issues pertinent to traffic safety. Recent collaborations with PI Hulme employed M&S to investigate observed vs. perceived aggressive driving behaviors (Golshani et al., 2015a, 2015b, and 2015c) (e.g., frequency of tailgating, speeding, braking abruptly, signal violations). To that end, a number of socio-demographic characteristics (age, race), driving experience and exposure (accident history, driver experience), and behavioral characteristics (speeding habits, caffeine usage, fatigue) were examined. Relevant to the proposed work, our entire team participated upon a published pilot study (Hulme et al., 2015) that served as a preliminary investigation into the internal distractions while driving dilemma. Our method of induction, UUT, will be investigated in greater detail. Most recently, Anastasopoulos and Hulme conducted a graduate course experiment to analyze induction methods and subsequent measurement of mind wandering while driving (Hulme et al., 2016, in preparation). In this examination, logic and math challenges were employed to distract the subject drivers; techniques that again, will be further explored in the current work.
