If you can read this, either the style sheet didn't load or you have an older browser that doesn't support style sheets. Try clearing your browser cache and refreshing the page.

(News.com.au) Obvious Psychologist says dangerous older drivers can be identified by how poorly they navigate through a maze with a pencil -- much like a Farmer's Market with a car   (news.com.au) divider line 20
More: Obvious, eye exams, farmer's markets, Australian Medical Association  
•       •       •

1634 clicks; posted to Main » on 16 Dec 2011 at 8:42 AM   |  Favorite    |   share:  Share on Twitter share via Email Share on Facebook   more»   |    Get this fabulous T-Shirt and impress the methane out of your friends! shirt it!



20 Comments   (+0 »)
   
 
2011-12-16 01:47:24 AM
"Is there cheese then?"
library.thinkquest.org
 
2011-12-16 02:15:00 AM
One minute? I'm not even that good at mazes, and my spatial skills are probably average-ish. I did that maze in about ten seconds.

Of course you shouldn't drive if it takes you longer than a minute to do that. I don't know how you'd manage to find your way out of a bathroom stall.
 
2011-12-16 08:50:34 AM
there was an older lady who couldn't walk where I worked the other day, she couldn't even stand up, she wanted mall security to take her to her car so she could drive home....... good idea.
 
2011-12-16 08:53:13 AM
Shouldn't take you even 30 seconds. Ridiculous.
 
2011-12-16 08:57:39 AM
MoreVespeneGas: there was an older lady who couldn't walk where I worked the other day, she couldn't even stand up, she wanted mall security to take her to her car so she could drive home....... good idea.

I take it they left her on the floor due to concern for public safety.
 
2011-12-16 09:01:26 AM
I agree with hitch. That "maze" is a single path with some side street dead ends. If you don't have that visually solved in less than 10 seconds, something is seriously wrong with the way you process visual information.

The limiter for me is drawing the line there, and that's farking sad.

/You have 2 minutes to draw me a maze that takes more than a minute to solve.
//Protip: Using optical illusions and keeping the end of a path further from the start of that path than a single 'visual scan zone' make mazes significantly harder.
 
2011-12-16 09:01:33 AM
Why do some of you think this maze test is ridiculous? Of course we younger people can do it in a snap. I did it without a pencil in about three seconds, but I have very high spatial skills. I also know that as I get older, my ability to do such things is going to decline. Everyone's cognitive abilities decline with age and, if someone has Alzheimer's or some similar neurological disorder, they decline rapidly. So if granny is required to take a simple test every few years and does well, but suddenly can't, it's probably time for granny to stop driving. There are many such pen-and-pencil cognitive screening test, but they must be scored by an expert. This one is simple and should be quite effective.
 
2011-12-16 09:09:21 AM
hitchking: One minute? I'm not even that good at mazes, and my spatial skills are probably average-ish. I did that maze in about ten seconds.

Of course you shouldn't drive if it takes you longer than a minute to do that. I don't know how you'd manage to find your way out of a bathroom stall.


This!
 
2011-12-16 09:28:17 AM
JackieRabbit: Why do some of you think this maze test is ridiculous? Of course we younger people can do it in a snap. I did it without a pencil in about three seconds, but I have very high spatial skills. I also know that as I get older, my ability to do such things is going to decline. Everyone's cognitive abilities decline with age and, if someone has Alzheimer's or some similar neurological disorder, they decline rapidly. So if granny is required to take a simple test every few years and does well, but suddenly can't, it's probably time for granny to stop driving. There are many such pen-and-pencil cognitive screening test, but they must be scored by an expert. This one is simple and should be quite effective.

It's not that we (or me at least) think that it is a ridiculous test. It's that I think it's ridiculous that there are people out there with spatial skills on par with a 2nd grader are out on the road with me.
 
2011-12-16 09:40:43 AM
BeesNuts: It's not that we (or me at least) think that it is a ridiculous test. It's that I think it's ridiculous that there are people out there with spatial skills on par with a 2nd grader are out on the road with me.

I also thought the one-minute thing was a bit long. Give them 30 seconds. Anyone should be able to solve that maze and draw a line in 15-30 seconds. It took me eight seconds with drawing the line (no mistakes) and I'm a pretty average maze solver.
 
2011-12-16 09:56:01 AM
I am trying to get my father to quit driving, and he won't. I can't force him to stop either, the state won't help unless his doctors agree, but his doctors all say he is fine to drive, despite two blisteringly negligent accidents in the past year. Yet not one of those doctors has ridden with him. Of course this is the same clown college that forks out powerful psychotropic meds to patients based on a ten minute conversation (if that) and the assumption the patient is telling the truth.

Pretty apparent that the medical and government communities are scared of the AARP, who love seeing all of this innocent blood on the streets.

He has the physical component, spry enough for his age. The problem is that it takes him a full two seconds to take needed action. He sees brake lights, 1 1 thousand, 2 1 thousand, apply brakes. He gets by, like they all do, by driving slow as hell, which just encourages others to pass him and create dangers in that way. And I don't relish the day he meets another one like him and something out of the ordinary comes up.
 
2011-12-16 10:10:12 AM
Captain_Ballbeard: He has the physical component, spry enough for his age. The problem is that it takes him a full two seconds to take needed action. He sees brake lights, 1 1 thousand, 2 1 thousand, apply brakes. He gets by, like they all do, by driving slow as hell, which just encourages others to pass him and create dangers in that way. And I don't relish the day he meets another one like him and something out of the ordinary comes up.

This sounded just like my grandmother before she finally had her license taken away. It took her plowing into one of those giant cement garden flower pots in a parking lot to get her to change her mind about driving. Thankfully she did her shopping early in the mornings, otherwise she probably would have run someone over.
 
2011-12-16 11:09:24 AM
14 seconds.

/Old
 
2011-12-16 12:00:03 PM
hitchking: One minute? I'm not even that good at mazes, and my spatial skills are probably average-ish. I did that maze in about ten seconds.

Of course you shouldn't drive if it takes you longer than a minute to do that. I don't know how you'd manage to find your way out of a bathroom stall.


I doubt you could actually do it in 10 seconds. Finding the path on the computer screen is faster than actually tracing it out with a pencil. I did the former in probably 5 seconds (I'm way above average on spatial skills) but there's no way I could hope to do the latter in that time frame.

BeesNuts: /You have 2 minutes to draw me a maze that takes more than a minute to solve.
//Protip: Using optical illusions and keeping the end of a path further from the start of that path than a single 'visual scan zone' make mazes significantly harder.


Define "draw" <G>. I have the source code for a dungeon-generating program open in another window. With appropriate settings it does a pretty good job of making a maze. In 2 minutes I could easily make a 2000x2000 maze with it. It's my code, it draws it--does that meet the definition of "draw"??

Captain_Ballbeard: He has the physical component, spry enough for his age. The problem is that it takes him a full two seconds to take needed action. He sees brake lights, 1 1 thousand, 2 1 thousand, apply brakes. He gets by, like they all do, by driving slow as hell, which just encourages others to pass him and create dangers in that way. And I don't relish the day he meets another one like him and something out of the ordinary comes up.

Yeah, they look fine to their docs because there's no need for quick processing of information. There was nothing I could do to get my father off the road, either--until the very end he actually looked fine behind the wheel but he was vulnerable to information overload. Too much information coming in and some of it would simply get dropped--reflected in things like a ticket for a left turn from a traffic lane (there was a turn lane.) Emergency situations are almost always information overload situations--if something went wrong he wouldn't have had a hope of avoiding an accident.
 
2011-12-16 12:39:40 PM
My grandfather lived in a small town, thankfully. After his 5th or 6th major accident the only repair/body shop refuse to repair his truck. The dealership would only sell him a "golf cart" like thing to get around his land. He refused to give up his license and all his friends and family refused to drive him further to buy or get his car repaired.

People biatch about young/new drivers while totally ignoring the older ones. With Babyboomers only getting older the older ones are going to cause a lot of problems.

I am going to go with the scientist when they say a minute...they have more knowledge.
 
2011-12-16 12:57:52 PM
img.memecenter.com
 
2011-12-16 01:01:19 PM
Loren: hitchking: One minute? I'm not even that good at mazes, and my spatial skills are probably average-ish. I did that maze in about ten seconds.

Of course you shouldn't drive if it takes you longer than a minute to do that. I don't know how you'd manage to find your way out of a bathroom stall.

I doubt you could actually do it in 10 seconds. Finding the path on the computer screen is faster than actually tracing it out with a pencil. I did the former in probably 5 seconds (I'm way above average on spatial skills) but there's no way I could hope to do the latter in that time frame.

BeesNuts: /You have 2 minutes to draw me a maze that takes more than a minute to solve.
//Protip: Using optical illusions and keeping the end of a path further from the start of that path than a single 'visual scan zone' make mazes significantly harder.

Define "draw" <G>. I have the source code for a dungeon-generating program open in another window. With appropriate settings it does a pretty good job of making a maze. In 2 minutes I could easily make a 2000x2000 maze with it. It's my code, it draws it--does that meet the definition of "draw"??

Captain_Ballbeard: He has the physical component, spry enough for his age. The problem is that it takes him a full two seconds to take needed action. He sees brake lights, 1 1 thousand, 2 1 thousand, apply brakes. He gets by, like they all do, by driving slow as hell, which just encourages others to pass him and create dangers in that way. And I don't relish the day he meets another one like him and something out of the ordinary comes up.

Yeah, they look fine to their docs because there's no need for quick processing of information. There was nothing I could do to get my father off the road, either--until the very end he actually looked fine behind the wheel but he was vulnerable to information overload. Too much information coming in and some of it would simply get dropped--reflected in things like a ticket for a left turn from a t ...


Not trying to brag, but 5 seconds seems a bit long to visually solve that puzzle. Not sure how people are defining 'average spatial skills these days', but solving that on-screen was near instant for me. Maybe 2 seconds to solve, verify and be smuggly satisfied with myself. It isn't proper pathing at that point it's just recognition of the path in its entirety. Not especially complicated when the entire 'maze' occupies a small enough area to be completely visually absorbed altogether. Drawing the line would be the more arduous task, though. You're spot on there. 10 seconds seems about right to me.

I was referencing a movie. Might have seen it.

/Unless you're Tarn Adams, I'm unimpressed with your world generation code. :p
//Though I'm always interested in seeing people's solutions to that particular problem, as they vary wildly from programmer to programmer.
 
2011-12-16 01:26:00 PM
here4few: People biatch about young/new drivers while totally ignoring the older ones. With Babyboomers only getting older the older ones are going to cause a lot of problems.

Are you kidding me? I never hear anyone complaining about younger drivers, except when they don't know how to drive or if they try to include you in their accidents that lead to a cross being placed on the side of the road. But everyone complains about old drivers, who have become a danger to themselves and everyone around them just by backing out of the drive. Elderly baby boomers will be no more or less of a problem than any other aging generation. Baby boomers are so called because so many men were gone for several years during WWII. When they returned, they started having babies fast. The country went from a dearth of babies to a glut of them in about a year. There aren't more baby boomers than previous generations; there are less people in succeeding generation because of the availability of effective birth control.
 
2011-12-16 09:44:14 PM
The Jeep drivers just drew a straight line across everything to the exit.

The Ford drivers' pens all broke halfway through the maze.

The Honda drivers covered their pens in LEDs and chrome, then dropped it down the sewer while showing off.

The Lexus drivers borrowed their father's pen.
 
2011-12-16 09:45:08 PM
If the old farts can survive this maze, they can survive anything: http://www.winterrowd.com/maze/default.aspx

/seems to like IE more than FireFox though
 
Displayed 20 of 20 comments


This thread is closed to new comments.

Continue Farking
Submit a Link »