High-speed curve negotiation: Can differences in expertise account for the different effects of cognitive load?

The role of expertise in the relationship between cognitive load (CL) and driving performance has received little scientific attention. This real-world study included 8 expert race car drivers and 10 non-expert drivers, who were driving on a racetrack while simultaneously performing cognitively distracting secondary tasks. The experiment examined whether the effects of CL on high-speed driving performance of hairpin, compound, and reverse curves are influenced by drivers’ expertise. In general, we found that non-expert drivers were not any more vulnerable to CL-induced performance decrements than skilled expert drivers, although the relationship between driving expertise and CL appeared to be task- and curve type-dependent. While between-group differences in secondary task performance were not obtained, speed was found to decrease in CL conditions but only in sharp hairpin curves. Additionally, CL affected experts’ and non-experts’ lateral performance in all curve types, although a clear relationship between trajectory deviations and steering corrections was not obtained. While the effects of CL appear to be the most prominent in sharp hairpin curves, the findings of this study suggest curve geometry as a variable that needs greater attention in future studies.