Abstract

In many situations, driving is essential for senior citizens to maintain their independent lifestyle. A systematic literature review was conducted that summarized the age-related physical, visual and cognitive functional declines and their associated risk to driving. Based on these findings, we explored whether the skills required in playing Xbox Kinect video games were correlated with measures of driving performance among older drivers. Fifty-two participants, 65 years of age or older (Mean = 72; SD = 3.84; range 65 – 85 years; 29 males) who have access to a car and drive frequently were invited to play Just dance, Table Tennis (ping pong), Bowling, and Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training Exercises on an Xbox Kinect 360. Participants also completed a 25-minute on-road driving task along a predetermined route to assess and identify critical driving errors using a similar instrument as that used by a driving license tester. Bivariate correlation examined the relationship between game scores and these objective driving skills. There was a significant correlation between the Xbox Kinect video games and on-road driving scores (r = 0.861, p <0.001), indicating that ‘good gamers are good drivers’. This was correlation was significant for the males (r = 0.864, p <0.001) as well as for the females (r = 0.878, p <0.001). We suggest that performance on Xbox games may be a suitable, cost-effective and less-risky indicator of on-road driving skills for older drivers, particularly in jurisdictions in which mandatory testing of older citizens has been introduced or is being considered as a requirement in the driver licensing process.

Details

Title
Good Old Gamers, Good Drivers: Results from a correlational experiment among older drivers
Author
Vichitvanichphong, Suchada; Talaei-Khoei, Amir; Kerr, Donald; Amir Hossein Ghapanchi; Scott-Parker, Bridie
Section
Research Articles
Publication year
2016
Publication date
2016
Publisher
Australasian Association for Information Systems
ISSN
14498618
e-ISSN
13262238
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2546076251
Copyright
© 2016. This work is published under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0 (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.