Ever wondered how motorists can make a long journey apparently on auto-pilot, without remembering anything they saw en route?

New research hopes to reveal how people develop patterns of eye movement which allow them to control their steering and speed in a split second, seemingly without thinking.

It could help driving instructors teach learners how to make the most of what they see. It could also, in the long-term, save lives.

Learner driver Gustav Kuhn looked more like a trainee fighter pilot as he took his first lessons wearing a special helmet and wired to a video link.

But the sights lined up with his eyes were not there to track an enemy.

The complex headset allowed researcher Cath Hughes to monitor his every eye movement and record exactly what he was looking at during each manoeuvre.

This information will help Sussex University's neuroscience department discover how our eye movements relate to habitual actions such as driving.

By using Gustav, a postgraduate psychology student, as their guinea pig the results could also have a big impact on road safety.

Miss Hughes, a post graduate researcher in the university's School of Biological Sciences, said: "From this we could be able to find out how learners develop a system to carry out everyday manoeuvres on the road, seemingly unconsciously.

"In terms of road safety, we might be able to understand why some road signs are often completely ignored or how drivers are distracted during certain manoeuvres.

"It could link in with other research. In Australia there have been studies into how drivers manoeuvre round certain road layouts, which could change the way we look at town planning."

The headset allows the researchers to monitor how patterns of eye movement develop in new drivers and how this relates to their driving skills and their view of the road.

It has a small camera which records, with the aid of mirrors, both the eye and the scene ahead.

The tests have been carried out during normal driving lessons with Gordon Cook from Countywide Driving School.

Everything Gustav looked at as he drove was filmed and the image was relayed to a specially-devised digital monitor which Miss Hughes carried with her in the back of the car.

The video will be analysed through a computer program which calculates where the subject was looking according to the eye position.

The research team, including Miss Hughes and her supervisor Professor Mike Land who developed the technology, hope to discover how people make the leap from a learner to the automatic hand-to-eye co-ordination found in experienced drivers.

Prof Land has previously used the headset to study experienced drivers' eye movements, including Formula One racing drivers. He found they appear to have an underlying pattern of eye movements for tasks such as pulling out of junctions and cornering.

Thus it often appears as though drivers are on automatic pilot - they do not have to think about manoeuvres which have become habitual behaviour. They know what to look at, what to expect, even when they are driving somewhere they have never been before.

Miss Hughes said the results could show why certain road information does not catch the driver's eye, even if this is sometimes a sign with a flashing light.

She said: "In everyday life, we make a constant stream of eye movements in order to manoeuvre quickly and easily through the world.

"These movements enable us to quickly turn our attention to those points in a scene that are necessary to carry out a task, whether it is walking down a street, playing the piano or driving a car.

"Driving is a particularly good activity to monitor as it requires full concentration by the subject, leaving the eye movements as close to natural as possible."