Not All Hazards are Created Equal: The Significance of Hazards in Inattentional Blindness for Static Driving Scenes

Explaining how we attend to some objects and not others in real world environments remains a challenge for theories of attention. Driving is an ideal example of this, as it requires a complex synthesis of attentional processing, while still allowing attention to be captured by hazards. In the current study we employed a static inattentional blindness (IB) driving task in which participants were required to make decisions about the content of driving-related scenarios. In a critical trial, an additional stimulus was added to the driving scenario. All unexpected stimuli were thematically consistent with a normal driving environment but varied in their level of hazard threat. Rates of IB were consistent with the level of hazard threat of the stimuli. The results are discussed in terms of semantic-based attentional capture in driving, and models of IB.