Isolating the Effect of Off-Road Glance Duration on Driving Performance: An Exemplar Study Comparing HDD and HUD in Different Driving Scenarios.

OBJECTIVE: We controlled participants' glance behavior while using head-down displays (HDDs) and head-up displays (HUDs) to isolate driving behavioral changes due to use of different display types across different driving environments. BACKGROUND: Recently, HUD technology has been incorporated into vehicles, allowing drivers to, in theory, gather display information without moving their eyes away from the road. Previous studies comparing the impact of HUDs with traditional displays on human performance show differences in both drivers' visual attention and driving performance. Yet no studies have isolated glance from driving behaviors, which limits our ability to understand the cause of these differences and resulting impact on display design. METHOD: We developed a novel method to control visual attention in a driving simulator. Twenty experienced drivers sustained visual attention to in-vehicle HDDs and HUDs while driving in both a simple straight and empty roadway environment and a more realistic driving environment that included traffic and turns. RESULTS: In the realistic environment, but not the simpler environment, we found evidence of differing driving behaviors between display conditions, even though participants' glance behavior was similar. CONCLUSION: Thus, the assumption that visual attention can be evaluated in the same way for different types of vehicle displays may be inaccurate. Differences between driving environments bring the validity of testing HUDs using simplistic driving environments into question. APPLICATION: As we move toward the integration of HUD user interfaces into vehicles, it is important that we develop new, sensitive assessment methods to ensure HUD interfaces are indeed safe for driving.

U can't touch this! Face touching behaviour whilst driving: implications for health, hygiene and human factors.

Analysis of thirty-one hours of video-data documenting 36 experienced drivers highlighted the prevalence of face-touching, with 819 contacts identified (mean frequency: 26.4 face touches/hour (FT/h); mean duration: 3.9-seconds). Fewer face-touches occurred in high primary workload conditions (where additional physical/cognitive demands were placed on drivers), compared to low workload (4.4 and 26.1 FT/h, respectively). In 42.5% of touches (or 11.2 FT/h), mucous membrane contact was made, with fingertips (33.1%) and thumbs (35.6%) most commonly employed. Individual behaviours differed (ranging from 5.1 to 90.7 FT/h), but there were no significant differences identified between genders, age-groups or hand used. Results are of relevance from an epidemiological/hygiene perspective within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic (and can therefore inform the design of practical solutions and encourage behavioural change to reduce the risk of self-inoculation while driving), but they also help to elucidate how habitual human behaviours are imbricated with the routine accomplishment of tasks.

Practitioner summary: The study highlights the propensity of face touching whilst driving through the analysis of on-road video datasets. Results have implications for the design of technological interventions (such as touchless interfaces and driver monitoring systems) and can inform awareness campaigns to reduce the risk of self-inoculation and infection transmission while driving.

A Perceptual Color-Matching Method for Examining Color Blending in Augmented Reality Head-Up Display Graphics.

Augmented reality (AR) offers new ways to visualize information on-the-go. As noted in related work, AR graphics presented via optical see-through AR displays are particularly prone to color blending, whereby intended graphic colors may be perceptually altered by real-world backgrounds, ultimately degrading usability. This work adds to this body of knowledge by presenting a methodology for assessing AR interface color robustness, as quantitatively measured via shifts in the CIE color space, and qualitatively assessed in terms of users' perceived color name. We conducted a human factors study where twelve participants examined eight AR colors atop three real-world backgrounds as viewed through an in-vehicle AR head-up display (HUD); a type of optical see-through display used to project driving-related information atop the forward-looking road scene. Participants completed visual search tasks, matched the perceived AR HUD color against the WCS color palette, and verbally named the perceived color. We present analysis that suggests blue, green, and yellow AR colors are relatively robust, while red and brown are not, and discuss the impact of chromaticity shift and dispersion on outdoor AR interface design. While this work presents a case study in transportation, the methodology is applicable to a wide range of AR displays in many application domains and settings.

Exploring the effectiveness of a digital voice assistant to maintain driver alertness in partially automated vehicles.

OBJECTIVE: Vehicle automation shifts the driver's role from active operator to passive observer at the potential cost of degrading their alertness. This study investigated the role of an in-vehicle voice-based assistant (VA; conversing about traffic/road environment) to counter the disengaging and fatiguing effects of automation. METHOD: Twenty-four participants undertook two drives- with and without VA in a partially automated vehicle. Participants were subsequently categorized into high and low participation groups (based on their proportion of vocal exchanges with VA). The effectiveness of VA was assessed based on driver alertness measured using Karolinska Sleepiness Scale (KSS), eye-based sleepiness indicators and glance behavior, NASA-TLX workload rating and time to gain motor readiness in response to take-over request and performance rating made by the drivers. RESULTS: Paired samples t-tests comparison of alertness measures across the two drives were conducted. Lower KSS rating, larger pupil diameter, higher glances (rear-mirror, roadside vehicles and signals in the drive with VA) and higher feedback ratings of VA indicated the efficiency of VA in improving driver alertness during automation. However, there was no significant difference in alertness or glance behavior between the driver groups (high and low-PR), although the time to resume steering control was significantly lower in the higher engagement group. CONCLUSION: The study successfully demonstrated the advantages of using a voice assistant (VA) to counter these effects of passive fatigue, for example, by reducing the time to gain motor-readiness following a TOR. The findings show that despite the low engagement in spoken conversation, active listening also positively influenced driver alertness and awareness during the drive in an automated vehicle.

Feel the noise: Mid-air ultrasound haptics as a novel human-vehicle interaction paradigm.

Focussed ultrasound can be used to create the sensation of touch in mid-air. Combined with gestures, this can provide haptic feedback to guide users, thereby overcoming the lack of agency associated with pure gestural interfaces, and reducing the need for vision - it is therefore particularly apropos of the driving domain. In a counter-balanced 2 × 2 driving simulator study, a traditional in-vehicle touchscreen was compared with a virtual mid-air gestural interface, both with and without ultrasound haptics. Forty-eight experienced drivers (28 male, 20 female) undertook representative in-vehicle tasks - discrete target selections and continuous slider-bar manipulations - whilst driving. Results show that haptifying gestures with ultrasound was particularly effective in reducing visual demand (number of long glances and mean off-road glance time), and increasing performance (shortest interaction times, highest number of correct responses and least 'overshoots') associated with continuous tasks. In contrast, for discrete, target-selections, the touchscreen enabled the highest accuracy and quickest responses, particularly when combined with haptic feedback to guide interactions, although this also increased visual demand. Subjectively, the gesture interfaces invited higher ratings of arousal compared to the more familiar touch-surface technology, and participants indicated the lowest levels of workload (highest performance, lowest frustration) associated with the gesture-haptics interface. In addition, gestures were preferred by participants for continuous tasks. The study shows practical utility and clear potential for the use of haptified gestures in the automotive domain.

Evaluating secondary input devices to support an automotive touchscreen HMI: A cross-cultural simulator study conducted in the UK and China.

Touchscreen Human-Machine Interfaces (HMIs) are a well-established and popular choice to provide the primary control interface between driver and vehicle, yet inherently demand some visual attention. Employing a secondary device with the touchscreen may reduce the demand but there is some debate about which device is most suitable, with current manufacturers favouring different solutions and applying these internationally. We present an empirical driving simulator study, conducted in the UK and China, in which 48 participants undertook typical in-vehicle tasks utilising either a touchscreen, rotary-controller, steering-wheel-controls or touchpad. In both the UK and China, the touchscreen was the most preferred/least demanding to use, and the touchpad least preferred/most demanding, whereas the rotary-controller was generally favoured by UK drivers and steering-wheel-controls were more popular in China. Chinese drivers were more excited by the novelty of the technology, and spent more time attending to the devices while driving, leading to an increase in off-road glance time and a corresponding detriment to vehicle control. Even so, Chinese drivers rated devices as easier-to-use while driving, and felt that they interfered less with their driving performance, compared to their UK counterparts. Results suggest that the most effective solution (to maximise performance/acceptance, while minimising visual demand) is to maintain the touchscreen as the primary control interface (e.g. for top-level tasks), and supplement this with a secondary device that is only enabled for certain actions; moreover, different devices may be employed in different cultural markets. Further work is required to explore these recommendations in greater depth (e.g. during extended or real-world testing), and to validate the findings and approach in other cultural contexts.

Steering the conversation: A linguistic exploration of natural language interactions with a digital assistant during simulated driving.

Given the proliferation of 'intelligent' and 'socially-aware' digital assistants embodying everyday mobile technology - and the undeniable logic that utilising voice-activated controls and interfaces in cars reduces the visual and manual distraction of interacting with in-vehicle devices - it appears inevitable that next generation vehicles will be embodied by digital assistants and utilise spoken language as a method of interaction. From a design perspective, defining the language and interaction style that a digital driving assistant should adopt is contingent on the role that they play within the social fabric and context in which they are situated. We therefore conducted a qualitative, Wizard-of-Oz study to explore how drivers might interact linguistically with a natural language digital driving assistant. Twenty-five participants drove for 10 min in a medium-fidelity driving simulator while interacting with a state-of-the-art, high-functioning, conversational digital driving assistant. All exchanges were transcribed and analysed using recognised linguistic techniques, such as discourse and conversation analysis, normally reserved for interpersonal investigation. Language usage patterns demonstrate that interactions with the digital assistant were fundamentally social in nature, with participants affording the assistant equal social status and high-level cognitive processing capability. For example, participants were polite, actively controlled turn-taking during the conversation, and used back-channelling, fillers and hesitation, as they might in human communication. Furthermore, participants expected the digital assistant to understand and process complex requests mitigated with hedging words and expressions, and peppered with vague language and deictic references requiring shared contextual information and mutual understanding. Findings are presented in six themes which emerged during the analysis - formulating responses; turn-taking; back-channelling, fillers and hesitation; vague language; mitigating requests and politeness and praise. The results can be used to inform the design of future in-vehicle natural language systems, in particular to help manage the tension between designing for an engaging dialogue (important for technology acceptance) and designing for an effective dialogue (important to minimise distraction in a driving context).

Driving without wings: The effect of different digital mirror locations on the visual behaviour, performance and opinions of drivers.

Drivers' awareness of the rearward road scene is critical when contemplating or executing lane-change manoeuvres, such as overtaking. Preliminary investigations have speculated on the use of rear-facing cameras to relay images to displays mounted inside the car to create 'digital mirrors'. These may overcome many of the limitations associated with traditional 'wing' and rear-view mirrors, yet will inevitably effect drivers' normal visual scanning behaviour, and may force them to consider the rearward road scene from an unfamiliar perspective that is incongruent with their mental model of the outside world. We describe a study conducted within a medium-fidelity simulator aiming to explore the visual behaviour, driving performance and opinions of drivers while using internally located digital mirrors during different overtaking manoeuvres. Using a generic UK motorway scenario, thirty-eight experienced drivers conducted overtaking manoeuvres using each of five different layouts of digital mirrors with varying degrees of 'real-world' mapping. The results showed reductions in decision time for lane changes and eyes-off road time while using the digital mirrors, when compared with baseline traditional reflective mirrors, suggesting that digital displays may enable drivers to more rapidly pick up the salient information from the rearward road scene. Subjectively, drivers preferred configurations that most closely matched existing mirror locations, where aspects of real-world mapping were largely preserved. The research highlights important human factors issues that require further investigation prior to further development/implementation of digital mirrors within vehicles. Future work should also aim to validate findings within real-world on-road environments whilst considering the effects of digital mirrors on other important visual behaviour characteristics, such as depth perception.

The effect of different navigation voices on trust and attention while using in-vehicle navigation systems.

INTRODUCTION: Automobiles are suffused with computers and technology designed to support drivers at all levels of the driving hierarchy. Classic secondary devices, such as in-vehicle navigation systems (IVNS), present strategic and tactical information to drivers. In order to mitigate the potential distraction and workload when interacting with these devices while driving, IVNS often employ voices to deliver navigational instructions. In contrast, voices are used during interpersonal encounters to engage the listener, provide clues about the speaker's personality and make judgments about them, for example, whether to like them and to trust them. METHOD: A study conducted within a fixed-based medium-fidelity driving simulator investigated if drivers made similar 'personality' attributions to voices emanating from an IVNS and if this subsequently affected how they engaged with the device while driving. Twenty-nine experienced drivers and IVNS users drove to a specified destination with a simulated IVNS and authentically reproduced UK road signage to support their route-finding. Either of two navigation voices were used; one considered 'high-trust' and the other 'low-trust.' Presented with a conflict scenario, where the verbal route guidance differed to the road signs, 22 drivers followed the IVNS instruction rather than the road signs. Of these, the majority were using the 'high-trust' voice. RESULTS: A post-drive questionnaire revealed that, despite the fact that message content and delivery remained equivalent, participants recognized different attributes ('personalities') associated with each of the navigation voices. This influenced their attitudes towards them, including how much they liked them, their preferences for use, and the level of trust that they associated with each voice. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS: While these, so-called, social responses may be invited and indeed encouraged in other contexts, in the automotive domain they are likely to conflict with the intended benefits of using a voice to deliver route guidance and therefore have implications for road safety and design.