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Cognitive distractions have been shown to affect drivers adversely and are a leading cause of accidents. Research indicates that drivers alter how they allocate their visual attention while engaging in secondary cognitive tasks. To evaluate the potential impact of secondary cognitive tasks on the allocation of drivers’ visual attention and on vehicle control, drivers were presented with increasingly complex forms of an auditory cognitive task while driving an instrumented vehicle. Measures of vehicle performance and eye gaze were assessed. Consistent with theories of visual tunneling, gaze distributions were significantly smaller while drivers performed certain levels of the secondary task; peripheral vision was thereby reduced. During the most difficult level of the secondary task, gaze dispersion was smaller than during any other level of the task. Changes in visual attention may provide earlier indications of cognitive …