Cognitive Control in Car Driving: The Case of Brain-injured Drivers

Cognitive control is a key tool for adaptation in dynamic situations. This paper's main aim is to assess the relevance of a theoretical framework for cognitive control in dynamic situations, in order to understand brain-injured car drivers' cognitive impairment. The framework bears on a cognitive control multimodality based on the crossing of two orthogonal dimensions: symbolic/subsymbolic and anticipative/reactive control. Brain-injured (BI) car drivers' behaviour was compared to a control group (CTRL) during driving simulator scenarios. BI participants showed a more symbolic and a more reactive cognitive control than CTRL participants. Whereas CTRL participants succeeded in adapting to conflicting situations with a stable cognitive control distribution among the modalities (cognitive compromise), it was more costly for BI participants who had to change their cognitive compromise. In addition, BI participants were less able to process secondary driving subtasks. Some implications in ten-is of car-driving assistance are drawn.