Evaluating Mentalization during Driving

The development of artificial intelligence promises important future changes from a social point of view. In particular, the emerging self-driving cars allow today to plan a future where traffic flow will greatly improve, and car accidents will be continuously decreasing. However, we should expect a period when full or partial autonomous vehicles and ordinary cars coexist, during which it would be essential to fully understand the cognitive processes used by ordinary people when driving. We identify as a crucial aspect the shift between quick and automated reactions, and the resort to mentalizing, costly social processes, sometimes necessary to predict intentions of other road users. In our experimental design we investigate the main precursors of mindreading, that is, eye contact and shared attention. We believe that a better understanding of this twofold mecahnisms involved in driving could be used to improve advanced driver assistance systems.