Are drivers’ attentional lapses associated with the functioning of the neurocognitive attentional networks and with cognitive failure in everyday life? Javier Roca a,b,⇑ , Juan Lupiáñez a , María-Fernanda López-Ramón a,c , Cándida Castro a a Departamento de Psicología Experimental, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de Granada, Campus Universitario Cartuja, s/n, 18071 Granada, Spain b Departamento de Psicología Evolutiva y de la Educación, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de Valencia, Avenida Blasco Ibáñez, 21, 46010 Valencia, Spain c Centro de Investigación en Procesos Básicos, Metodología y Educación, CONICET, Mar del Plata, Argentina article info Article history: Received 17 April 2012 Received in revised form 17 October 2012 Accepted 21 October 2012 Keywords: Driver Behaviour Questionnaire Attentional lapses Attention Network Test Vigilance Tonic alertness Cognitive Failures Questionnaire abstract Driver distraction and inattention are considered among the major contributing factors in road traffic crashes. One of the most widely used tools to study drivers’ attentional lapses and other types of aberrant behaviour is the Driver Behaviour Questionnaire (DBQ). In the present work, further evidence of the feasibility of the DBQ to study driver inattention is provided. The relationships between the DBQ and both a computer-based neurocognitive test on attentional performance (the Attention Network Test for Interactions and Vigilance, ANTI-V) and a self-reported measure of cognitive failure (the Cognitive Failures Question- naire, CFQ) are analysed. Results show that attentional lapses are negatively associated with vigilance and positively associated with cognitive failure. Other types of aberrant behaviour (driving errors, traffic violations and aggressive behaviours) were not found related to the attentional performance indices (executive control, orienting, phasic alert- ness or vigilance), with the exception of DBQ-Violations and the executive control score in percentage of errors. In addition, the relationship between the other types of aberrant behaviour with cognitive failure was more moderate (except for DBQ-Errors, which was also highly correlated). Overall, these results are consistent with the idea of DBQ-Lapses being related to driving inattention, and suggest that this subscale could be a useful tool to study vigilance-related driving behaviour. Further evidence with improved versions of the DBQ or alternative questionnaires would be helpful to clarify whether proneness to attentional lapses while driving may be associated with different driving performance measures, such as crashes or near misses. Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Driver distraction and inattention are considered among the major contributing factors in road traffic crashes (e.g. Kircher, 2007; Klauer, Dingus, Neale, Sudweeks, & Ramsey, 2006; Ranney, 2008) and their negative influence on road safety is expected to further increase in the coming years, due to the proliferation of in-vehicle technologies (Regan, Hallett, & Gordon, 2011; Stutts, Reinfurt, Staplin, & Rodgman, 2001). With the aim of reducing attention-related crashes, road traffic researchers and practitioners would benefit from the synergy of complementary methodologies to analyse the driver 1369-8478/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.trf.2012.10.005 ⇑ Corresponding author at: Departamento de Psicología Experimental, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de Granada, Campus Universitario Cartuja, s/n, 18071 Granada, Spain. Tel.: +34 958 240 663; fax: +34 958 246 239. E-mail addresses: jroca@ugr.es (J. Roca), jlupiane@ugr.es (J. Lupiáñez), mariafernandalopezramon@gmail.com (M.-F. López-Ramón), candida@ugr.es (C. Castro). Transportation Research Part F 17 (2013) 98–113 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Transportation Research Part F journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/trf