729 research outputs found
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Comparison of Novice and Experienced Drivers Using the SEEV Model to Predict Attention Allocation at Intersections During Simulated Driving
No full textWe compared the eye movements of novice drivers and experienced drivers while they drove a simulated driving scenario that included a number of intersections interspersed with stretches of straight road. The intersections included non-hazard events. Cassavaugh, Bos, McDonald, Gunaratne, & Backs (2013) attempted to model attention allocation of experienced drivers using the SEEV model. Here we compared two SEEV model fits between those experienced drivers and a sample of novice drivers. The first was a simplified model and the second was a more complex intersection model. The observed eye movement data was found to be a good fit to the simplified model for both experienced (R2 = 0.88) and novice drivers (R2 = 0.30). Like the previous results of the intersection model for the experienced drivers, the fit of the observed eye movement data to the intersection model for novice drivers was poor, and was no better than fitting the data to a randomized SEEV model. We concluded based on the simplified SEEV model, fixation count and fixation variance that experienced drivers were found to be more efficient at distributing their visual search compared to novice drivers
Pre-Frontal Cortex Activity of Male Drivers in the Presence of Passengers During Simulated Driving: An Exploratory Functional Near- Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) Study
No full textAdolescents are more likely to be involved in motor vehicle crashes in the presence of peer passengers, and risky driving behaviors of male teenagers increase in the presence of male peer passengers. There could be several mechanisms of the influence of peer passengers, however it is evident that the male teenage driver with a male peer passenger makes riskier decisions than when alone. The developing teenage brain’s activity is different from that of adults during decision-making, especially in regions associated with impulse control, response inhibition, and risk taking. This study tested the feasibility of using functional nearinfrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), a non-invasive brain imaging method that allows in vivo measurements of oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin in cortical tissue, to study drivers’ brain activation during simulated driving. Cortical activity was measured in participants driving alone and in the presence of a passenger. When at a dilemma zone at a signalized intersection participants showed increased activation in regions of the left and right medial pre-frontal cortex when driving with a passenger as compared to when driving alone
Effectiveness of a Heads-Up Adaptive Lane Deviation Warning System for Middle-Aged and Older Adults
No full text46 participants (24 younger and 22 older) completed at least one out of four simulated drives designed to test the effectiveness of an Adaptive Lane Deviation Warning (LDW) system, and they drove through both a warnings-on and warnings-off version of each drive. Findings showed that LDW was effective in reducing reaction time for lane deviation corrections for both older (by 1.2 seconds) and younger drivers (by 1.6 seconds). The older and younger drivers did not differ in correction RTs when the warnings were turned off. But older drivers showed slower correction RTs than younger drivers in the warning-on drives. The data indicate that these benefits were specific to LDW rather than general improvement in driving performance. Cognitive processing speed emerged as a particularly robust predictor of benefits from the LDW compared to other domains of cognitive function
A Web-Based Evaluation Tool to Predict Long Eye Glances
No full textWe present a web-based evaluation tool that simulates drivers’ eye glances to interface designs of in-vehicle information systems (IVISs). This tool computes saliency of each location of a candidate interface and simulates eye fixations based on the saliency, until it arrives at the region of interest. Designers can use this tool to estimate the duration of drivers’ eye glance needed to find regions of interest, such as particular icons on a touch screen. The overall goal of developing this application is to bridge the gap between guidelines and empirical evaluations. This evaluation tool acts as an interactive model-based design guideline to help designers craft less distracting IVIS interfaces
Low Hanging Fruit: Use of Virtual Reality Driving Simulation in Department of Motor Vehicles to Assess Minimal Competence of Novice Drivers
No full textNationally, Departments of Motor Vehicles (DMV) license novice drivers based in part on on-road assessments. Intuitively it is assumed that such assessments are fair, reliable and valid measures of minimal driving competency. Upon further reflection, this would be difficult, given the subjectivity of a huge range of driving examiners that approach this assessment with different training backgrounds, life distractions and biases from examination to examination, the different road, traffic, lighting and weather conditions from one examination and DMV center to the next, and the minimal driving challenges in such assessments. For example, a typical on-road test involves only a 4 mile road segment with 2 left turns, 4 right turns, 1 lane change, pulling into a turn lane, and 1 speed limit change. It does not include highway driving nor defensive driving maneuvers. Additionally, such on-road assessments are both potentially dangerous and time demanding/expensive. A less expensive, safer, more challenging, objective, reliable, and valid procedure may be the use of Virtual Reality Driving Simulation (VRDS) that administers consistent and more extensive driving challenges to all examinees, which is evaluated in an objective manner based on normative data from current safe drivers. This presentation describes the experience and presents the data from a project where VRDSs were set up in two DMV facilities and a Research facility. The goals of this project were to determine whether VRDS assessments are just as reliable, discriminating and acceptable to the public as on-road assessments, and whether performance on the simulator predicts future on-road driving mishaps
A Secondary Assessment of the Impact of Voice Interface Turn Delays on Driver Attention and Arousal in Field Conditions
No full textVoice interface use has become increasingly popular in vehicles. It is important that these systems divert drivers’ attention from the primary driving task as little as possible, and numerous efforts have been devoted to categorizing demands associated with these systems. Nonetheless, there is still much to be learned about how various implementation characteristics impact attention. This study presents a secondary analysis of the delay time between when users finish giving commands and when the system responds. It considers data collected on 4 different production vehicle voice interfaces and a mounted smartphone in field driving. Collapsing across systems, drivers showed an initial increase in heart rate, skin conductance level, and off-road glance time while waiting for a system to respond; a gradual decrease followed as delays continued. The observed attentional and arousal changes are likely due to an increase in anticipation following a speech command, followed by a general disengagement from the interface as delay times increase. Safety concerns associated with extended delay times and suggestion of an optimal range for system response times are highlighted
Capturing Voluntary, Involuntary, and Habitual Components of Driver Distraction in a Self-Reported Questionnaire
No full textTo maximize the effectiveness of strategies for mitigating driver distraction, it is crucial to understand the factors underlying drivers’ engagement in distractions. This article describes a step toward an improved version of the Susceptibility to Driver Distraction Questionnaire (SDDQ), namely the development of an exploratory questionnaire based on findings from the original SDDQ. In this exploratory questionnaire, the Theory of Planned Behaviour continues to serve as the framework for investigating voluntary distractions, relating intentional actions to attitudes, perceived behavioural control, and perceived social norms regarding distractions. Involuntary distractions are captured by investigating the difficulty associated with ignoring information that is not critical for safe driving. A new component of habitual behaviours is also added to measure distractions that involve minimal conscious control, yet were once intentional and goal-driven. The resulting exploratory questionnaire will be used in an upcoming online survey study to determine the items that most effectively capture voluntary, involuntary, and habitual distraction. An improved SDDQ will be generated based on analyses of this pending study
Do Drowsy Driver Drugs Differ?
No full textThis research paper explores how different drug mechanisms within a single class of drugs can produces different profiles of driving impairment. Prior research has failed to consider these mechanistic differences and often utilizes less controlled study methodologies. The potential impact of differing mechanistic effects is important for practitioners but remains unclear for most drugs. Twentynine licensed drivers in good general health completed one of two miniSim™ studies using a validated, standardized, driving impairment scenario. Both drugs caused degradation in lateral control measures of standard deviation of lane position (SDLP) and number of lane departures, however only diphenhydramine was found to cause a significant change in steering bandwidth. The studied drugs differed in their effects on all longitudinal driving measures with diphenhydramine effecting speed and alprazolam effecting the standard deviation of speed. Difference in therapeutic mechanism of action results in differing pharmacodynamic driving performance outcomes. This analysis reinforces the importance of careful consideration of a drug’s specific mechanism of action when considering a sedating drug’s impact on a patient’s ability to safely operate a motor vehicle
Informative Collision Warnings: Effect of Modality and Driver Age
No full textResearch has revealed that when drivers are presented with an informative tactile collision warning, they are able to produce faster braking reaction times (BRTs) which may potentially reduce the likelihood and severity of rear-end collisions. To expand on this research, we investigated the effectiveness of unimodal (tactile) and multisensory (audiotactile) informative collision warnings for younger and older drivers. In line with our previous results, driver BRTs were significantly faster when they were presented with an informative signal as compared to a non-informative signal and a control condition in which no warnings were presented. The results also revealed that the unimodal informative warning was just as effective as the multisensory warning. Intriguingly, older drivers exhibited faster BRTs than younger drivers, and were significantly faster following the presentation of multisensory warning signals. Finally, this study identifies the need to compare new configurations of informative tactile collision warning signals
The Incredible Shrinking Letter: How Font Size Affects the Legibility of Text Viewed in Brief Glances
No full textAs in-vehicle interfaces have become miniature computers with userfacing LCD screens, the complexities of designing for them have increased tremendously. Given their safety-critical nature, designers must carefully consider every aspect of the vehicle’s digital interface. Recent research has suggested that even the typeface used to display the interface’s text can have significant impacts on driver behaviors such as total off-road glance time and secondary task completion time. Here we outline a psychophysical method for rapidly assessing the glance-based legibility of two different typefaces (a “humanist” and a “square grotesque”) presented in two different sizes (3mm and 4mm). Consistent with previous research, we find that humanist type is more legible than square grotesque. We also find that text is empirically less legible at 3mm compared to 4mm, and that this effect is especially pronounced for the square grotesque typeface. Legibility thresholds were also found to increase linearly with age, more than doubling across the age range studied. We hypothesize that the square grotesque’s intrinsic design characteristics cause it to scale poorly at small sizes and lose important details, especially in suboptimal display conditions