The interplay between cognitive load and driving in scenarios of daily commuting

High levels of cognitive load have a disruptive effect on many cognitive tasks, especially driving. Surprisingly, we know little about the effect (if any) of cognitive load immediately before driving, and even less about the effect of driving (with its own cognitive load) on subsequent performance in cognitive tasks. The effect of cognitive load on driving performance was examined in Study 1. Participants completed cognitive tests with low or moderate cognitive load (LCL vs MCL) before a simulated driving task. Their driving speed, distance from the car ahead, and lane keeping abilities were assessed on two consecutive days. Study 2 examined the effect of demanding driving (as a cognitive task on its own) on the accuracy and reaction time to a multi-source interference task (MSIT). Two conditions were compared: no-driving LCL vs driving MCL conditions. In Study 1, a moderate cognitive load preceding a driving task led to a modest increase in the distance kept from the vehicle ahead. Equally, a demanding driving task was beneficial to the performance in a following cognitive task (Study 2). The results suggest that moderate levels of cognitive load may engage attentional and executive networks and such activation could spread into timely contiguous cognitive tasks. The findings provide a starting framework to examine the interplay between cognitive load and driving in home-to-work and work-to-home commuting scenarios.