The attentional performance of a person is one of the most relevant psychological functions in driving. It is generally agreed upon that attention has to be conceived as a multi-factorial phenomenon. Based on the Test of Attentional Performance (TAP) which was initially developed for the assessment of attentional deficits in patients with cerebral lesions the company "PSYTEST" developed a short form of this test namely TAP-M (Mobility Version). This test was compiled to measure attentional aspects of the ability to drive.

The core of these procedures are reaction time tasks of low complexity allowing to evaluate very specific deficiencies. The tasks consist of simple and easily distinguishable stimuli that patients react to by a simple motor response. Thus, the influence of a number of factors that would have an inhibiting effect on testing are kept to a limit. As much as possible, it was attempted to account for factors that may disrupt testing, such as motor problems, visual disorders and language deficits.

The subtests in the newly developed test battery TAP-M permit to assess a variety of visuo-spatial, non-spatial and executive attentional aspects such as alertness, divided attention, flexibility of focused attention, inhibitory processes, working memory, visual search, selective visual attention and suppressing potentially distracting stimulation which are relevant for safe driving.