Heart rate variability changes during an auditory reaction time task in a simulated driving situation

This study used an auditory reaction time task to distract and mentally load participants while driving a simple track on a computer-based driving simulator. The aim was to investigate whether the 0.1 Hz component of heart rate variability (HRV) was sensitive to the changes in demand created by these relatively simple dual task conditions. Performance on the secondary task appeared to be sacrificed in order to maintain relatively stable driving performance. The 0.1 Hz component of HRV did not reflect the increased demands associated with the dual task conditions, whereas the time domain measures of HRV did.