The findings demonstrated that participants took longer to brake and had more collisions when conversing on a mobile phone than when legally intoxicated. This evidences a reduced ability to detect and react to unexpected events, increasing the risk of hitting a pedestrian or another vehicle. However, the authors caution that, "in the real world there is a natural confounding of … fatigue" (p.390) - because participants were well rested the alcohol's effect may have been reduced. Further research needs to be undertaken to incorporate the likely confounding variable of fatigue. The study's use of a relatively simple naturalistic conversation also limits its generalisability, as it does not reflect the different types of conversation that occur in the real
The findings demonstrated that participants took longer to brake and had more collisions when conversing on a mobile phone than when legally intoxicated. This evidences a reduced ability to detect and react to unexpected events, increasing the risk of hitting a pedestrian or another vehicle. However, the authors caution that, "in the real world there is a natural confounding of … fatigue" (p.390) - because participants were well rested the alcohol's effect may have been reduced. Further research needs to be undertaken to incorporate the likely confounding variable of fatigue. The study's use of a relatively simple naturalistic conversation also limits its generalisability, as it does not reflect the different types of conversation that occur in the real