PONE-D-25-19007Analysis of the distraction impact on driving performance across driving styles: A driving simulator study in various speed conditionsPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Nassiri,

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Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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[This research was funded by the Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran; the Traffic Injury Research Center, Tabriz, Iran; and the University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia. The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest related to the research, authorship, or publication of this paper. The data underlying this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request, subject to confidentiality agreements and ethical considerations.]

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Partly

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: This paper focuses on a interesting and meaningful topic, where the intersection between driving style and driving performance under MPDD conditions were investigated. However, there are several issues to be clarified.

1. Page 4, Lines 96-100. It would be better to describe more information of participants, such as the accident experience, vision and hearing conditions.

2. Page 4, Line 101. The authors adopted randomized order to minimize potential learning effects. Although the randomized order is valid to some extent, the use of a Latin-square experimental design is more standardized and effective.

3. Page 4, Line 106. The driving simulator shown in Fig 1 does not appear to have motion simulation capabilities and is therefore not a high-fidelity driving simulator. In the field of driving behavior analysis, driving simulators that only have visual and auditory simulations are usually referred to as medium-fidelity driving simulators.

4. Page 5, Line 132-133. The instructions for the participants need to be further clarified. For example, the participants were required to follow the lead vehicle and were not allowed to overtake the vehicle or change lanes under any circumstances.

5. Page 6, Table 1. The initial case form of the variables in the table is not standardized.

6. Page 7, Lines 187-193. Why the authors only adopt conditions (i) to (iv) to recognize participants driving style? There were six condition in total.

Reviewer #2: Although the topic of this manuscript holds certain practical significance and the authors have made efforts in reviewing the relevant literature, there remain notable shortcomings. Specifically, the research objectives and innovative contributions are not clearly articulated; the experimental design suffers from potential confounding factors and lacks sufficient detail; and the definition and interpretation of key variables are not rigorous.

1. In the Introduction, the authors state that mobile phone-related distracted driving (MPDD) has become a key concern in road traffic safety. However, the cited references [6]–[12] mainly document the co-occurrence of distracted driving and MPDD across different countries, without providing concrete evidence on how MPDD specifically increases crash risk. It is recommended that more targeted literature be included to clarify the specific mechanisms through which MPDD impacts driving safety.

2. Despite conducting a relatively comprehensive review of existing studies, the Introduction fails to extract the core research question and clearly define the study's objectives. This lack of focus obscures the novelty and significance of the research. The authors are advised to better articulate the research motivation and explicitly state the scientific problem this study aims to address, along with its potential contributions.

3. The experiment involves six types of traffic conditions, yet each condition lasts only for a short period, and the vehicle’s state changes continuously. This setup may introduce interference effects that compromise the drivers’ ability to perform the tasks as intended, thereby undermining the reliability of the collected data. The experimental design should be refined, or the strategies used to mitigate such interference should be clarified. Additionally, Figure 2 lacks necessary details; it is recommended to include the time–speed profiles at key event points to improve clarity.

4. The current description of the mobile phone task is insufficient to evaluate whether it effectively induces cognitive distraction. Detailed information should be provided on the experimental procedures, such as how distraction tasks are triggered, the content and duration of phone calls, the type and demands of text messaging tasks, etc. Moreover, the method for quantifying cognitive load should be specified, and evidence should be presented to confirm that the distraction task significantly increases cognitive demand on the driver.

5. The study classifies participants into two driving style groups. However, the criteria for this classification are unclear, and the rationale for choosing the K-means clustering method has not been justified. The authors should explain why K-means is suitable for this context and clarify its methodological advantages in this study.

6. The Discussion section is overly brief and mainly repeats the results without engaging in comparative analysis with existing literature. It is recommended to expand this section by contrasting the study’s findings with prior research and analyzing possible reasons for any discrepancies, in order to highlight the scientific value and implications of the work.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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PONE-D-25-19007R1Analysis of the distraction impact on driving performance across driving styles: A driving simulator study in various speed conditionsPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Nassiri,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please address the reviewer's concern and revise the manuscript again.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Oct 29 2025 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Quan Yuan, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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If the reviewer comments include a recommendation to cite specific previously published works, please review and evaluate these publications to determine whether they are relevant and should be cited. There is no requirement to cite these works unless the editor has indicated otherwise. 

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Thank you for your rely and revisions. My previous concerns have been solved.

However, after reading the revised manuscript, I found that there is a new limiation. Although the authors adopted several metrics (e.g., SDLP, ART, and TIBL) to identify driving style, drivers' gaze behaviors are also important aspects of driving style. Thus, I recommend the authors to clarify that. You can refer to this article: Lane changing maneuver prediction by using driver’s spatio-temporal gaze attention inputs for naturalistic driving

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Analysis of the distraction impact on driving performance across driving styles: A driving simulator study in various speed conditions

PONE-D-25-19007R2

Dear Dr. Nassiri,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Quan Yuan, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

**********

2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Thank you for your rely and revisions. My previous concerns have been solved. The manuscript is suitable to publish now.

**********

7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

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