Neuroscientific Degradation Under Stress : Implications for Driver Perception - Response Time

The main objective of this paper is to prove that acute stress can lead to Motor Vehicle Collisions (MVCs) and can be dangerous just like external distractions (e.g. Texting) or chemical impairments (e.g. alcohol abuse). This paper also analyses how calm brain use cortical processing mainly the Pre Frontal Cortex (PFC) which allows the driver to remain calm and calculate spatial distances however when the driver is in a state of acute stress the brain uses subcortical processing where the amygdala is in control and causes the brain to be panicked. Moreover the paper mentions dual stress response where both the SAM and HPA axes get activated and how this results in the PFC being ‘flooded’ by cortisol and adrenaline as the blood brain barrier (BBB) has been breached, since the PFC is highly sensitive to chemical changes this sudden ‘rush’ of cortisol and adrenaline cause the PFC to temporarily impair which causes process such as spatial thinking to temporarily stop, this creates a cognitive bottleneck specifically in the intellection (Processing) and Emotion (Decision making) stages of the PIEV cycle. Additionally this paper mentions the phenomena of cognitive narrowing where the driver who is in a state of acute stress loses the ability to process peripheral data and environmental cues efficiently, due to this the Perceived Response Time (PRT) increases from a safe range of 1.0 - 1.5 seconds to 2.0 - 2.5+ seconds this causes an increase in Perceived Response Distance (PRD) which may be dangerous and may result in a MVC.