Instead, your brain begins to depend more on your mental prediction of what you’ll see (extra-retinal feedback). When you drive along a road you know well or stare at a largely unchanging road for a long period of time, your brain begins to depend less on retinal feedback, or what you actually see. Brain inattentionĪccording to other research from 2004, your oculomotor system, or the system that controls eye movements, also plays a part in highway hypnosis.
This suggests highway hypnosis may happen very quickly on monotonous stretches of road, not only after long periods of driving.
#Hypnotize eyes drivers
Researchers found that the drivers tended to show more fatigue, measured by large steering movements, while driving on the more monotonous road.Īlso noteworthy was the fact their fatigue peaked after approximately 20 minutes of driving. Flat bridges and overpasses also broke up the scenery in several different places. The second road contained multiple visual elements, including trees, farms, signs, and people. The participants “drove” on two different simulated roads for 40 minutes at a time.īoth roads were flat, but the first road only had one type of visual scenery: pine trees spaced equally on either side of the road.
Most existing research on highway hypnosis suggests monotony plays a significant part in this phenomenon.Ī 2003 study used a driving simulator to study the effects of road monotony on 56 experienced male drivers. Here’s a look at some major contributing factors. While highway hypnosis can happen more commonly in tired drivers, fatigue isn’t the only cause.
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