Methods utilised to evaluate reaction time comparisons

There are 3 main methods used to find safer drugs for patients driving vehicles.
These are by using on road driving tests, car simulators or with laboratory techniques to measure human reaction times in response to a stimulus.

ON ROAD DRIVING TESTS

On road driving tests usually consist of a road tracking test and a car following test. The parameters most commonly studied include are a standard deviation of lateral position (SDLP), time to speed adaptation (TSA) brake reaction time (BRT) and gain.
In road-tracking tests a subject operates a specially instrumented vehicle over a 100-km primary highway circuit while maintaining a constant speed (95 km/h) and a steady lateral position between the delineated boundaries of the right (slower) traffic lane.
An electro-optical device mounted at the rear of the car continually measures lateral distance separating the vehicle and the left lane.
Gain is measured as the amplification factor between the speed signals collected from both the leading and following vehicles and indicates the magnitude of overshoot in reaction.
The car-following test involves the use of two vehicles. The preceding vehicle is under an investigator’s control, and the following vehicle is under the subject’s control. The test begins with the two vehicles travelling in tandem at speeds of 70 km/hour on a secondary highway. Subjects attempt to drive 15–30 m behind the preceding vehicle and to maintain that headway as it executes a series of deceleration manoeuvres. During the test, the speed of the leading car is controlled automatically by a modified cruise-control system. Initially it is set to maintain a constant speed of 70 km/hour, and by activating a microprocessor the investigator can begin sinusoidal speed changes reaching amplitude of -10 km/hour and returning to the starting level within 50 seconds. The manoeuvre is usually repeated six times.
Between deceleration manoeuvres, the investigator in the leading car randomly activates the brake lights of his vehicle by activating a second mode of the microprocessor.
The brake lights then light for 3 seconds, whereas the speed of the leading car remains constant at 70 km/hour.
The subject is instructed to react to brake lights by removing his/her foot from the speed pedal.

CAR SIMULATORS

Car simulators like the SimuRide Pro 2010 July edition Driving Simulation are a tool to test driver's reflex. Its feature: the "Reaction Time" course can be combined with any vehicle and condition available in this driving simulator. The "Stop" message shows up randomly with any speed and situation. The driver must remove pressure off of the gas and onto the brake; this action is measured and graded by SimuRide.
The reaction time (in thousands of a second) is displayed on the monitor.
This function can be used to measure the reaction time of driver to show the delayed reaction of drunk or distracted driving (talking on the phone).
The SimuRide Professional 2013 edition provides simulation under sunny, foggy and night conditions.
Different terrain conditions can be simulated such as winding roads, maze with obstacles, high volume traffic, changing lanes/traffic lights, driving and parallel parking, bendy road with falling obstacles, city driving with traffic and a new reaction time test. The SimuRide Driving Trainer Simulator series of software will alert the user when an error has been made by flashing a warning on the screen during the drive.
These errors are then recorded in a minute-by-minute report at the end of each drive. This report is printable and refreshes for the next drive.

LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS

These measure simple, recognition and choice reaction times under standard laboratory conditions. These methodologies are usually conducted in randomised, double blind and placebo controlled studies.

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