A pilot study on the cognitive and driving performance of high-contact sports athletes in a conditionally automated vehicle

OBJECTIVES: Conditionally automated vehicles (CAVs) can perform most dynamic driving tasks but still require human drivers to resume control when automation reaches its limits. Successful takeovers depend on drivers' cognitive resources-especially mental workload (MWL) management and situational awareness (SA)-which can be affected by sport-related concussion (SRC) and repeated head impacts. Guided by our proposed conceptual framework linking SRC-associated neurocognitive inefficiencies to MWL, SA, and CAV driving performance, this pilot study examined whether participation in high-contact sports is associated with CAV-relevant cognitive and behavioral differences. METHODS: Seventeen professional ice hockey players and seventeen control participants with no history of contact sports completed a simulated CAV driving task involving multiple takeover events. Eye-tracking was used to index MWL- and SA-related oculomotor activity, and driving performance was assessed using takeover success rate and manual driving duration. Generalized linear mixed models, including binary logistic models, were employed to examine the effects of group ((high-contact sports athletes vs. controls) on cognitive and driving performances. RESULTS: The findings showed that contact sports athletes exhibited higher MWL-related eye-tracking indicators, lower takeover success rates, and shorter mean manual driving duration than the control group. CONCLUSION: These preliminary findings support the proposed framework and suggest that prior exposure to high-contact sports-where SRCs are common and often underreported-may make takeover episodes more cognitively demanding, underscoring the need for future CAV safety research to account for drivers' neurocognitive readiness.