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Total results: 588

Designing an Experimental Platform to Assess Ergonomic Factors and Distraction Index in Law Enforcement Vehicles during Mission-Based Routes

Year: 2024

Authors: MH Cheng, J Guan, HK Dave, RS White, RL Whisler

Mission-based routes for various occupations play a crucial role in occupational driver safety, with accident causes varying according to specific mission requirements. This study focuses on the development of a system to address driver distraction among law enforcement officers by optimizing the Driver–Vehicle Interface (DVI). Poorly designed DVIs in law enforcement vehicles, often fitted with aftermarket police equipment, can lead to perceptual-motor problems such as obstructed vision, difficulty reaching controls, and operational errors, resulting in driver distraction. To mitigate these issues, we developed a driving simulation platform specifically for law enforcement vehicles. The development process involved the selection and placement of sensors to monitor driver behavior and interaction with equipment. Key criteria for sensor selection included accuracy, reliability, and the ability to integrate seamlessly with existing vehicle systems. Sensor positions were strategically located based on previous ergonomic studies and digital human modeling to ensure comprehensive monitoring without obstructing the driver’s field of view or access to controls. Our system incorporates sensors positioned on the dashboard, steering wheel, and critical control interfaces, providing real-time data on driver interactions with the vehicle equipment. A supervised machine learning-based prediction model was devised to evaluate the driver’s level of distraction. The configured placement and integration of sensors should be further studied to ensure the updated DVI reduces driver distraction and supports safer mission-based driving operations.

2 versions available

Dynamic Alert Design Based on Driver’s Cognitive State for Take-over Request in Automated Vehicles

Year: 2024

Authors: W Umpaipant

This thesis investigates the effectiveness of dynamic alert systems tailored to drivers’ cognitive states in automated driving environments, focusing on enhancing takeover readiness during critical transitions. Utilizing a large-scale immersive driving simulation, the study evaluated drivers’ response times and physiological measures when reacting to various alert intensities and the presence of a secondary typing task. The experiment revealed that dynamic alerts significantly improved response times and takeover performance, especially in high-distraction scenarios. Drivers responded more effectively when alerts were adjusted to their cognitive load, with strong alerts resulting in the fastest reaction times under distracted conditions. On average, dynamic alerts reduced response times by approximately 1.75 seconds compared to static alerts. Additionally, higher lateral accelerations were observed under strong alerts, indicating more decisive maneuvering. Self-rated attention-capturing scores were notably higher with dynamic alerts, particularly under strong alert conditions and in the presence of secondary tasks. The ANOVA results showed significant improvements in attention capturing and overall alert effectiveness when dynamic alerts were employed, demonstrating the robust design’s ability to capture attention and enhance driver responsiveness. The study confirmed that adaptive alert designs, which adjust based on the driver’s cognitive state, can markedly enhance overall driving experience and safety. Participants reported higher levels of confidence with dynamic alerts, especially in scenarios involving secondary tasks. Despite the strong alerts, annoyance levels remained low, indicating that dynamic alerts are effective without causing undue stress. These results underscore the potential of using adaptive systems to improve safety and efficiency in automated driving, advocating for a more nuanced approach to system alerts that considers the variable cognitive states of drivers. Future research should validate these findings with on-road studies, explore a broader range of alert modalities, and refine physiological monitoring techniques to further enhance adaptive alert systems.

2 versions available

Exploring the occupational fatigue risk of short-haul truck drivers: effects of sleep pattern, driving task, and time-on-task on driving behavior and eye-motion metrics

Year: 2024

Authors: C Zhang,Y Ma, S Chen, J Zhang, G Xing

Driver fatigue is the leading cause of truck-related accidents. The most significant occupational fatigue factors among short-haul truck drivers are sleep patterns, the round-trip driving task, and the time-on-task. However, the underlying mechanisms of these influential factors remain unclear. This study aims to explore the interactive effects of sleep patterns, driving task, and time-on-task on driving behavior and eye-motion metrics among short-haul truck drivers. We obtained test data from eleven professional short-haul truck drivers, with each driver participating in a three-day test under the conditions of two driving tasks and three different sleep patterns. We applied three-way repeated-measure ANOVA and non-parametric tests to analyze the data. The results reveal that: (1) violation of sleep-related legal requirements, insufficient sleep, and unreasonable time-on-task can have negative effects on short-haul truck drivers' vigilance and driving performance; (2) both driving task and sleep pattern contribute to driver fatigue, and the interaction of time-on-task and sleep pattern exacerbates driver fatigue more than the effects of any single factor alone; and (3) short-haul truck drivers who are sleep deprived exhibit short periods of controlled compensatory behavior during the outbound task, and sleepiness is more prevalent during the inbound task compared to the outbound task due to the monotony and low workload of the driving process. These findings provide theoretical and practical guidance for transportation industry managers to strengthen company-wide fatigue-related regulations, ensure adequate sleep for drivers via regulations, and optimize work schedules to improve safety outcomes of short-haul truck drivers.

5 versions available

Gaze alternation predicts inclusive next-speaker selection: evidence from eyetracking

Year: 2024

Authors: C Rühlemann

Next-speaker selection refers to the practices conversationalists rely on to designate who should speak next. Speakers have various methods available to them to select a next speaker. Certain actions, however, systematically co-select more than one particular participant to respond. These actions include asking “open-floor” questions, which are addressed to more than one recipient and that more than one recipient are eligible to answer. Here, next-speaker selection is inclusive. How are these questions multimodally designed? How does their multimodal design differ from the design of “closed-floor” questions, in which just one participant is selected as next speaker and where next-speaker selection is exclusive? Based on eyetracking data collected in naturalistic conversation, this study demonstrates that unlike closed-floor questions, open-floor questions can be predicted based on the speaker’s gaze alternation during the question. The discussion highlights cases of gaze alternation in open-floor questions and exhaustively explores deviant cases in closed-floor questions. It also addresses the functional relation of gaze alternation and gaze selection, arguing that the two selection techniques may collide, creating disorderly turntaking due to a fundamental change in participation framework from focally dyadic to inclusive. Data are in British and American English.

1 version available:

GazeAway: Designing for Gaze Aversion Experiences

Year: 2024

Authors: N Overdevest,R Patibanda,A Saini

Gaze aversion is embedded in our behaviour: we look at a blank area to support remembering and creative thinking, and as a social cue that we are thinking. We hypothesise that a person's gaze aversion experience can be mediated through technology, in turn supporting embodied cognition. In this design exploration we present six ideas for interactive technologies that mediate the gaze aversion experience. One of these ideas we developed into “GazeAway”: a prototype that swings a screen into the wearer's field of vision when they perform gaze aversion. Six participants experienced the prototype and based on their interviews, we found that GazeAway changed their gaze aversion experience threefold: increased awareness of gaze aversion behaviour, novel cross-modal perception of gaze aversion behaviour, and changing gaze aversion behaviour to suit social interaction. We hope that ultimately, our design exploration offers a starting point for the design of gaze aversion experiences.

3 versions available

GazeTrak: Exploring Acoustic-based Eye Tracking on a Glass Frame

Year: 2024

Authors: K Li,R Zhang, B Chen,S Chen, S Yin

In this paper, we present GazeTrak, the first acoustic-based eye tracking system on glasses. Our system only needs one speaker and four microphones attached to each side of the glasses. These acoustic sensors capture the formations of the eyeballs and the surrounding areas by emitting encoded inaudible sound towards eyeballs and receiving the reflected signals. These reflected signals are further processed to calculate the echo profiles, which are fed to a customized deep learning pipeline to continuously infer the gaze position. In a user study with 20 participants, GazeTrak achieves an accuracy of 3.6° within the same remounting session and 4.9° across different sessions with a refreshing rate of 83.3 Hz and a power signature of 287.9 mW. Furthermore, we report the performance of our gaze tracking system fully implemented on an MCU with a low-power CNN accelerator (MAX78002). In this configuration, the system runs at up to 83.3 Hz and has a total power signature of 95.4 mW with a 30 Hz FPS.

3 versions available

Group Cycling in Urban Environments: Analyzing Visual Attention, Hazard Perception, and Riding Performance for Enhanced Road Safety

Year: 2024

Authors: M Li, Y Zhang, T Chen, H Du, K Deng

China is a major cycling nation with nearly 400 million bicycles. The widespread use of bicycles effectively alleviates urban traffic congestion. However, safety concerns are prominent, with approximately 35% of cyclists forming groups with family, friends, or colleagues, exerting a significant impact on the traffic system. This study focuses on group cycling, employing urban cycling experiments, GPS trajectory tracking, and eye-tracking to analyze the visual search, hazard perception, and cycling control of both groups and individuals. Findings reveal interdependence in visual attention among group cyclists in busy and complex road conditions, leading to reduced attention to traffic safety targets and potential decreases in risk perception. In terms of lateral control, group cycling exhibits lower lateral deviation and higher steering entropy, particularly at complex intersections. While group cycling results in decreased speed, it forms a clustering advantage at complex intersections, competitively advancing to shorten intersection passage times. Overall, group cyclists differ from individuals in visual, hazard perception, and control aspects, potentially elevating cycling risks. Consequently, there is a need for corresponding traffic safety education and intervention, along with consideration of group cycling characteristics in urban traffic planning to enhance safety and efficiency.

1 version available:

Guiding gaze gestures on smartwatches: Introducing fireworks

Year: 2024

Authors: W Delamare, D Harada, L Yang,X Ren

Smartwatches enable interaction anytime and anywhere, with both digital and augmented physical objects. However, situations with busy hands can prevent user inputs. To address this limitation, we propose Fireworks, an innovative hands-free alternative that empowers smartwatch users to trigger commands effortlessly through intuitive gaze gestures by providing post-activation guidance. Fireworks allows command activation by guiding users to follow targets moving from the screen center to the edge, mimicking real life fireworks. We present the experimental design and evaluation of two Fireworks instances. The first design employs temporal parallelization, displaying few dynamic targets during microinteractions (e.g., snoozing a notification while cooking). The second design sequentially displays targets to support more commands (e.g., 20 commands), ideal for various scenarios other than microinteractions (e.g., turn on lights in a smart home). Results show that Fireworks’ single straight gestures enable faster and more accurate command selection compared to state-of-the-art baselines, namely Orbits and Stroke. Additionally, participants expressed a clear preference for Fireworks’ original visual guidance.

4 versions available

Immediate Effects of Pencil Push-Up Exercise on Visual Accommodation Skills in Amateur Badminton Players: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Year: 2024

Authors: A Pokaisasawan, The Open Sports Science Journal

Visual skills are crucial for peak athletic performance, with Visual Accommodation (VA) playing a vital role. However, the immediate effects of interventions on VA in sports remain unclear. Objective To investigate the acute effects of a 10-minute Pencil Push-Up (PPU) exercise on VA skills in amateur badminton players. Methods A two-arm, parallel, randomized controlled trial was conducted with twenty-eight amateur badminton players. Participants were matched by age, duration, and frequency of badminton practice, as well as visual health, and randomly assigned to either a Trained Group (TG) or an untrained group (NT). The TG performed a 10-minute PPU exercise, while the NT rested with closed eyes for the same duration. VA parameters, including Amplitude of Accommodation (AA), Accommodative Facility (AF), and Near Point of Convergence (NPC), were assessed before and after the intervention. Results Significant improvements in AA and AF were observed in the TG from pre- to post-intervention (AA: p < .0001, Cohen's d = 1.68; AF: p < .0001, Cohen's d = 3.10). However, no significant changes were observed in NPC (p= .45, Cohen's d =0.60). Furthermore, the TG exhibited greater improvements in AA and AF compared to the NT at post-intervention (AA: 95%CI= [-2.812 to -0.2314], p = .02; AF: 95%CI= [-8.363 to -3.680], p < .0001). No changes were observed in the NT group. Conclusion A single session of pencil push-up exercise acutely enhanced visual accommodation skills, specifically amplitude of accommodation and accommodative facility, in amateur badminton players. This suggests that visual accommodation training methods like pencil push-ups could improve visual performance in sports.

1 version available:

Knowing me, knowing you—A study on top-down requirements for compensatory scanning in drivers with homonymous visual field loss

Year: 2024

Authors: B Biebl,M Kuhn, F Stolle, J Xu,K Bengler,AR Bowers

Objective It is currently still unknown why some drivers with visual field loss can compensate well for their visual impairment while others adopt ineffective strategies. This paper contributes to the methodological investigation of the associated top-down mechanisms and aims at validating a theoretical model on the requirements for successful compensation among drivers with homonymous visual field loss. Methods A driving simulator study was conducted with eight participants with homonymous visual field loss and eight participants with normal vision. Participants drove through an urban surrounding and experienced a baseline scenario and scenarios with visual precursors indicating increased likelihoods of crossing hazards. Novel measures for the assessment of the mental model of their visual abilities, the mental model of the driving scene and the perceived attention demand were developed and used to investigate the top-down mechanisms behind attention allocation and hazard avoidance. Results Participants with an overestimation of their visual field size tended to prioritize their seeing side over their blind side both in subjective and objective measures. The mental model of the driving scene showed close relations to the subjective and actual attention allocation. While participants with homonymous visual field loss were less anticipatory in their usage of the visual precursors and showed poorer performances compared to participants with normal vision, the results indicate a stronger reliance on top-down mechanism for drivers with visual impairments. A subjective focus on the seeing side or on near peripheries more frequently led to bad performances in terms of collisions with crossing cyclists. Conclusion The study yielded promising indicators for the potential of novel measures to elucidate top-down mechanisms in drivers with homonymous visual field loss. Furthermore, the results largely support the model of requirements for successful compensatory scanning. The findings highlight the importance of individualized interventions and driver assistance systems tailored to address these mechanisms.

8 versions available