Decision-Making in Interactions Between Two Vehicles at a Highway Junction

Driving often involves situations where interaction between drivers is required, for instance in situations where two lanes merge. In previous studies, models have been proposed wherein the environmental relationship, such as relative distance between two cars determines the drivers' driving behavior (Hiramatsu, Jang, Naemoto, Ito, Yamazaki, and Sunda, 2017). However, according to Simulation Theory in the Theory of Mind, the driver may think "If I were you, I would drive in this way," and so their behavior is determined by referring to this simulation. In this study, this hypothesis was examined in the merging scenario. Results show that a driver would drive according to traffic norms or the driving tendency (e.g., the degree of acceleration/deceleration, or average speed). This suggests that the Simulation Theory proposed in the Theory of Mind is unlikely to be adopted in decision-making process in the merging scenario.