Driving gets in the way of a good conversation

Enough of those studies finding that talking interferes with driving. Maybe driving interferes with talking. Ever consider that?

Researchers at the University of Illinois did. They put several dozen people in a driving simulator -- asking them to either drive or just sit there -- and then had them chat with a conversation partner. Those partners were either in the simulator or calling via cellphone. Hands-free, of course.

Turns out, dealing with traffic does a number on the ability to recall information, even to produce speech. Intersections proved particularly problematic.

Here's the news release and the abstract from the study, funded by the National Institute on Aging and published in the February issue of Psychonomic Bulletin & Review.

The researchers wrote: "Measures of driving performance suggested that the drivers gave priority to the driving task when they were conversing. As a result, their linguistic performance suffered."

Obviously they should have been texting instead.

-- Tami Dennis

Photo: Don't expect any of these drivers to remember much of what you tell them, whether you're conversing via phone or in the car.

Photo credit: Associated Press

Comments

[Michelle]

I feel bad for the students at U of Illinois, to know that their hard-earned tuition money is going towards this type of rubbish.

[Mark]

"Conversation Gets in the Way of Good Driving!"

[LAofAnaheim]

Take Metro! Talk and converse with real people...instead of digitally with a microphone.

[oranckay]

On the other hand, some couples talk more while driving than at any other time. It really helps a relationship if you share a long commute in comfortable car, even if your train of thought is occasionally interrupted by an intersection or drivers behaving badly. Also, the distractions and the fact that both parties are next to each other facing forward, instead of looking each other right in the eye, makes having some discussions easier than they might be otherwise for some people.