Improving drivers’ hazard perception and performance using a less visually-demanding interface
In-vehicle devices and infotainment systems occasionally lead to driver distraction, and as a result, increase the risk of missing on-road information. In the current study, a novel multi-touch interface for an in-vehicle infotainment system was evaluated, which potentially requires less visual attention and thus may reduce distraction and increase safety. The interface was compared with a functionally similar control interface in terms of hazard perception metrics and mental workload. Twenty-two participants drove a simulated route once with each system. During each drive, which included eight potentially-hazardous scenarios, participants were instructed to interact with one of the in-vehicle interfaces to perform phone calls or to navigate to specified destinations. Eye-gaze data were collected throughout the drive to evaluate whether participants detected the hazards while interacting with the in-vehicle interface, how much time they needed to identify them, and for how long they engaged with the secondary task. Additionally, after each drive, participants completed a NASA R-TLX questionnaire to evaluate their subjective workload during their engagement with the secondary tasks. Participants using the multi-touch interface needed less time to complete each secondary task and were quicker at identifying potential hazards around them. However, the probability of detecting hazards was similar for both interfaces. Finally, when using the multi-touch interface, participants reported lower subjective workload. The use of a multi-touch interface was found to improve drivers’ performance in terms of identifying hazards quicker than the control condition. The road safety and driver distraction implications of this novel interface are discussed.
Interfacing: An Exploration of Sensory Experiences
To minimise discord between bodies and devices, emerging technologies require methodologies that offer responsive sensory experiences to people who are not directly involved in the making of these technologies.
PURPOSE
To explore sensory experiences, along with shape and rhythm, to study the interaction of body, material, and environment.
ABSTRACT
Interfacing is the way our senses respond to beings, material and devices. From here, interfaces become more than smartphones or pixels on a screen. This research work identifies interdependencies between bodies and material. Through sculpting or shaping, clay for instance, digital devices or virtual environments can be modelled, while also offering bodily ways to make what could be. Interfaces then become interactive, body responsive, story sharing and co-making materials. To make body responsive devices, more people with varied experiences need to be involved in making our technologies. Body-material affordances can be established by acknowledging and responding to experiences of the body, e.g. sensory experiences and expressions of body knowledge. These interfaces would then afford responsive movements to suit diverse groups of people coming from varied lived experiences. Body-centered interaction is made possible by means of non-digital interaction. Through the primacy of sensory experiences, interfaces can then avoid high-precision repetitive interactions, while affording more general movements when using software and devices. The first of the three microstudies in this work, establishes an awareness of environment, followed by participation in an environment with non-digital devices, and finalized by a response to these experiences. One form of participation was to sculpt or shape an interface out of clay; here participants, with their body, responded to material and contributed to the immediate environment. Shaping is a body-material responsive process where the participant decides when their interface, or device, is ready, i.e. complete. Following this, a microstudy was conducted that involved an activity known as stone balancing. Here, gaze tracking revealed the end of an interaction as a duration, not an instance: as hands released the stones, and gaze lingered. The third and final microstudy was another stone balancing experience, this time in the dark with glow-in-the-dark stones and without the gaze tracker. The dark environment afforded a low-sensory environment and general movement. Overall, this work on sensory experiences and general movement establishes meaning and importance to the interdependent bodily process of interfacing.
KEYWORDS
HMI, interface, body, movement, coordination, rhythm, shape, interaction, HTI, small data
Intra-performance related differences in quiet eye of elite pistol shooters
The purpose of current study was to comparison of quiet eye of elite pistol shooters in successful and unsuccessful trials. In post event study, 20 elite male pistol shooters selected for this study with age range 20-30 years old. After five trials familiarization, participants performed 20 trials to target with available standard. Scores of ten were considered successful, and scores of less than ten were considered unsuccessful. Data were analyzed using dependent t-test and Pearson correlation coefficient. The results indicated that there was significant difference between quiet eye period in successful and unsuccessful trials (sig=0.01), and participants had higher quiet eye in successful trials than unsuccessful trials. Also, there was significant positive correlation between quiet eye and performance. Overall, the results of current study indicated that quiet eye related with inter- individual motor skill variability (elite vs. novice) and intra- performance (successful and unsuccessful trials).
Multimodal data fusion to improve the control of myoelectric prosthetic hands
Although remarkable improvements have been made, the natural control of hand prostheses in everyday life is still challenging. Changes in limb position can considerably affect the robustness of pattern recognition-based myoelectric control systems, even if various strategies were proposed to mitigate this effect. In this paper, we investigate the possibility of selecting a set of training movements that is robust to limb position change, performing a trade-off between training time and accuracy. Four able-bodied subjects were recorded while following a training protocol for myoelectric hand prostheses control. The protocol is composed of 210 combinations of arm positions, forearm orientations, wrist orientations, and hand grasps. To the best of our knowledge, it is among the most complete including changes in limb positions. A training reduction paradigm was used to select subsets of training movements from a group of subjects that were tested on the left-out subject’s data. The results show that a reduced training set (30 to 50 movements) allows a substantial reduction of the training time while maintaining reasonable performance, and that the trade-off between performance and training time appears to depend on the chosen classifier. Although further improvements can be made, the results show that properly selected training sets can be a viable strategy to reduce the training time while maximizing the performance of the classifier against variations in limb position.
Multimodal features for detection of driver stress and fatigue
Driver fatigue and stress significantly contribute to higher number of car accidents worldwide. Although, different detection approaches have been already commercialized and used by car producers (and third party companies), research activities in this field are still needed in order to increase the reliability of these alert systems. Also, in the context of automated driving, the driver mental state assessment will be an important part of cars in future. This paper presents state-of-the-art review of different approaches for driver fatigue and stress detection and evaluation. We describe in details various signals (biological, car and video) and derived features used for these tasks and we discuss their relevance and advantages. In order to make this review complete, we also describe different datasets, acquisition systems and experiment scenarios.
Nudging Eco-Driving Behaviour Using Motive Substitution
Nudging Eco-Driving Behaviour Using Motive Substitution Potvin-Bernal, Julian The dissertation explores the potential of using motive substitution as a strategy to nudge individuals towards eco-driving behaviours. The premise is rooted in behavioural economics, where altering the motivations behind a behaviour can lead to significant changes in outcomes. By substituting environmental motives with other incentives such as financial savings or convenience, the study investigates how individuals' driving behaviours can be influenced to become more eco-friendly. This research examines the effectiveness of various interventions through a series of experiments and surveys, providing insights into the psychological mechanisms at play. The findings suggest that motive substitution can be an effective tool in promoting sustainable driving habits, offering practical implications for policy-makers and stakeholders aiming to reduce carbon emissions from the transportation sector.
Research on drivers’ visual characteristics in different curvatures and turning conditions of the extra-long urban underwater tunnels
In order to study driver’s visual characteristics under different curvatures and turning conditions in extra-long urban underwater tunnels, fixation and saccade were herein regarded as the main research objectives. In this study, we carried out real vehicle testing on curved sections with 5 different radii and straight sections of the extra-long urban underwater tunnels. The driver’s fixation characteristics were studied by using fixation distribution, fixation time, fixation frequency, fixation time ratio, and frequency ratio. The driver’s saccade characteristics were investigated by selecting the saccade angle, saccade time, saccade frequency, saccade time ratio, and frequency ratio. Accordingly, mathematical models of the driver’s fixation time, fixation frequency, saccade time, and saccade frequency under different curvatures and turning conditions in the extra-long urban underwater tunnel were established. Combined with the change of visual distance, sight distance, and sight zone, driver’s visual characteristics in the extra-long urban underwater tunnel were further analyzed. The results demonstrated that the smaller the radius of the tunnel, the more focused driver’s fixation time, the greater the psychological pressure, and the lower the safety when driving. Under the same radius, driver’s tension and risk factors were higher during turning left, while driver’s driving mentality was more relaxed and driving situation was further stable in the right-turn.
Searching for street parking: effects on driver vehicle control, workload, physiology, and glances
Urban areas that allow street parking exhibit a heightened crash risk that is often attributed to factors such as reduced road width, decreased visibility, and interruptions to traffic flow. No previous on-road studies have investigated how the demands of searching for parking affect driving performance, physiology, and visual attention allocation. We are interested in these effects on the driver and their possible influence on the safety of the environment. While simulator studies offer several benefits, the physical, mental and social pressures incurred by searching for parking in an urban streetscape cannot be emulated in a simulator. We conducted an on-road instrumented vehicle study with 28 participants driving in downtown Toronto, Canada to explore the effect of searching for street parking on drivers. During the experiment, participants drove two routes in a counterbalanced order: one route with a parking search task, and the other route as a baseline. Speed and lane position were measured via vehicle instrumentation, heart rate and galvanic skin response were measured through physiological sensors, and gaze position was collected through a head-mounted eye-tracker. Participants completed the NASA Task Load Index after each route. It was found that while searching for parking, participants drove slower and closer to the curb, and perceived higher workload. While there were no statistically significant effects in physiological measures, there was a rise in heart rate approaching statistical significance. A detailed analysis of eye-tracking data revealed a clear change in glance behavior while searching for parking, with an increase in long off-road glances (>2 s) and decrease in shorter off-road glances (<1.6 s). Some exhibited behaviors (e.g., slowing down) may be seen to compensate for the potentially negative effects of increased demands associated with parking search, while others (e.g., increase in long off-road glances) have the potential to increase crash risk. This study acts as an important first step in revealing changes in driving performance, physiology and glance behavior brought on by searching for parking in a real-world urban environment.
