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Big Seat, Bad Behavior
If you’ve stacked up a lot of speeding tickets or parking fines in the last several months, you might consider how the size and interior of your vehicle is contributing to the points on your driver’s license. Research has shown how our posture can significantly affect our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. And a study published last year showed that these postures can affect our conduct behind the wheel. The study, led by behavioral researcher Andy J. Yap of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, involved a series of experiments and revealed that open postures boost our feelings of power, and those feelings can cause us to act dishonestly.
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Steering Through Curves: The Eyes Have It
When we encounter curves in the road when we’re driving, our ability to handle the wheel isn’t the fundamental key to navigating through the bend. Recent research provided key insights on the critical role that our eyes play when we steer through road curves. The study by psychological scientist Otto Lappi of the University of Helsinki shows that tiny eye movements allow drivers to predict a vehicle’s trajectory in a curve. Lappi and his research group used new and innovative methods to analyze the small and subtle eye movements that drivers make when driving through a curve. These optokinetic eye movements take only fractions of a second, and the driver is not aware of them.
