1. The notion that talking on a cell phone while driving a car isn’t safe seems obvious, but still we don’t care about it, atleast most of us while driving.
2. Let us understand what happens exactly on the basis of a study conducted by University of South Carolina psychology department headed by associate professor of psychology Dr. Amit Almor.
3. The study is to provide a better understanding of why language – talking and listening, including on a cell phone – interferes with visual tasks, such as driving.
4. If is proved in different experiments that planning to speak and speaking put far more demands on brain’s resources than listening.
5. The attention level is four times more distracted while preparing to speak or speaking than when we are listening.
6. Reasons are: in conversation, people have the urge to contribute. We compete with the other person, in conversation. So the greater the urge to speak, the great will be the distraction from the visual task.
7. The participants could complete the visual task in front of them more easilywhen the projected voice also was in front that suggests
8. In the case of a car, an internal speaker phone could project a speaker’s voice from the front so that it occupies the same place as the visual task of driving. The same could be applied in remote classroom instruction, in PowerPoint presentations and in military and pilot training.
9. The National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA) reported in April 2008 that 25 percent of all car accidents are caused by distractions. A survey done by Nationwide Mutual Insurance in 2007 indicated that 73 percent of drivers talk on cell phones while driving. Given that cell-phone sales have vaulted to 254 million in February 2008 up from (4.3 million in 1990), according to the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association, there is good reason for researchers to study the brain and how talking and listening on a cell phone interferes with driving a car. Ultimate focus is not now ‘banning’ but finding out ways to ‘minimize the chances’ of meeting with an accident while talking on mobile and driving together.
10. Almor found that participants could complete the visual task in front of them more easily when the projected voice also was in front. This effect, while not so strong as the difference between preparing to speak or speaking and listening, “Either people are used to face-to-face communication or, when they engage in a language task, they create a mental representation in their mind and place the voice somewhere in space,” Almor said. “In this case, that space is in front of them, which suggests that it may be easier to have all things that require attention occupy the same space.”
11. Almor’s findings are particularly relevant in light of recent statistics.
12. At the University of South Carolina, Almor conducts research on language and memory (the brain’s ability to acquire, organize, revise and store information).