Abstract
This study attempts to investigate the effects of gender and age on drivers’ situation awareness (SA). By literature review and interviews with experts, SA plays an important role in different driving tasks (maneuvering task and navigation task). A driving simulation setup mimics a close-loop highway environment was established prior to the experiment. With fifty recruited participants (35 male and 15 female drivers), each participant was asked finishing the simulation experiment with two scenarios (high vs. low mental workload). In addition, two freezes were given for each participant during the experiment. Situation Awareness Global Assessment Technique (SAGAT) questionnaire survey was conducted after each freeze and the Situation Awareness Rating Technique (SART) questionnaire survey was given when a scenario was performed. The experiment has been finished recently and some of the preliminary results showed that different gender and age groups were significantly different in terms of the degree of the SA. In general, male subjects showed higher SA than the females. The age group of 36 to 45 years had the highest SA while the age group of 18 to 25 years had the lowest SA. The results also show that drivers have better SA under high workload situation than low workload situation. The results could be useful in providing specific aspects for driving training and for further researches as well.