Attention allocation patterns in naturalistic driving (original) (raw)
Related papers
2015
Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) and Forward Collision Warning (FCW) have been shown to have a positive effect on safety-related measures despite a general increase in secondary task involvement. To understand this effect, this study examined the relationship between drivers glance locations and ACC hard braking or FCW events when ACC is active. The study analyzed naturalistic driving on motorways where the car remained in the same lane. Four subsets of driving segments were included: ACC braking (peak deceleration ≥ 3 m/s2), FCW+ACC (driving with ACC when a forward collision warning was issued) ACC maintaining speed, and Driver braking without ACC or FCW. The results indicate that although drivers do take their eyes off path more when using ACC, this conclusion seems to be valid only in non-critical (baseline-similar) situations. Drivers showed a steady increase in %EyesOnPath well before critical situations, resulting in 95% EyesOnPath both at the onset of ACC braking and at the onse...
Visual attention while driving: sequences of eye fixations made by experienced and novice drivers
Ergonomics, 2003
Eye fixations were recorded while novice and experienced drivers drove along three types of roads (rural, suburban and dual-carriageway). An analysis of the content of those fixations was performed in order to identify differences in the scanpaths that can be associated with skill acquisition and that can indicate a sensitivity to road type. This analysis itemized the part of the visual scene that was inspected with each fixation, and identified what the driver looked at as a function of what they had looked at previously. Single-fixation, two-fixation, and threefixation patterns of eye-movements were identified. Differences in sequences of fixations were found between novice and experienced drivers on the three types of roads, with experienced drivers showing greater sensitivity overall, and with some stereotypical transitions in the visual attention of the novices. A number of individual sequences were identified, including a roadway preview pattern (alternating fixations between near and far views of the road ahead), and patterns involving mirror inspections that varied according to the road type.
Ergonomics, 2011
Several studies have documented that the failure of drivers to attend to the forward roadway for a period lasting longer than 2-3 seconds is a major cause of highway crashes. Moreover, several studies have demonstrated that novice drivers are more likely to glance away from the roadway than experienced drivers for extended periods when attempting to do a task inside the vehicle. The present study examines the efficacy of a PC-based training program (FOCAL) designed to teach novice drivers not to glance away for these extended periods of time. A FOCAL-trained group was compared to a placebo-trained group in an on-road test, and the FOCAL-trained group made significantly fewer glances away from the roadway that were more than 2 seconds than the placebo-trained group. Other measures indicated an advantage for the FOCAL-trained group as well.
Cognitive distraction impairs drivers' anticipatory glances: An on-road study
This study assessed the impact of cognitive distraction on drivers’ anticipatory glances. Participants drove an instrumented vehicle and executed a number of secondary tasks associated with increasing levels of mental workload including: listening to the radio or audiobook, talking on a handheld or hands-free cellphone, interacting with a voice-based e-mail/text system, and executing a highly demanding task (Operational Span task; OSPAN). Drivers’ visual scanning behavior was recorded by four different high definition cameras and coded off-line frame-by-frame. Visual scanning behavior at road intersections with crosswalks was targeted because distraction is one of the major causes of accidents at these locations (NHTSA, 2010a). Despite the familiarity of the locations, results showed that as the secondary-task became more cognitively demanding drivers reduced the amount of anticipatory glances to potential hazards locations. For example, while interacting with a high fidelity voice-...
Analysis of Naturalistic Driving Study Data: Safer Glances, Driver Inattention, and Crash Risk
The Second Strategic Highway Research Program America's highway system is critical to meeting the mobility and economic needs of local communities, regions, and the nation. Developments in research and technology-such as advanced materials, communications technology, new data collection technologies, and human factors science-offer a new opportunity to improve the safety and reliability of this important national resource. Breakthrough resolution of significant transportation problems, however, requires concentrated resources over a short time frame. Reflecting this need, the second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP 2) has an intense, large-scale focus, integrates multiple fields of research and technology, and is fundamentally different from the broad, mission-oriented, discipline-based research programs that have been the mainstay of the highway research industry for half a century. The need for SHRP 2 was identified in TRB Special Report 260: Strategic Highway Research: Saving Lives, Reducing Congestion, Improving Quality of Life, published in 2001 and based on a study sponsored by Congress through the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21). SHRP 2, modeled after the first Strategic Highway Research Program, is a focused, timeconstrained, management-driven program designed to complement existing highway research programs. SHRP 2 focuses on applied research in four areas: Safety, to prevent or reduce the severity of highway crashes by understanding driver behavior; Renewal, to address the aging infrastructure through rapid design and construction methods that cause minimal disruptions and produce lasting facilities; Reliability, to reduce congestion through incident reduction, management, response, and mitigation; and Capacity, to integrate mobility, economic, environmental, and community needs in the planning and designing of new transportation capacity.
Drivers’ visual attention: A field study at intersections
Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 2020
Crossing a road intersection, a driver must collect a certain amount of visual information from various locations. The allocation of visual attention, which allows this collection, mainly relies on top-down processes. This study focuses on three top-down factors which inuence the collection of visual information: the value of visual information for the ongoing task, their bandwidth, and the familiarity with the environment. These factors are studied according to the priority rules at intersections (Give way, Stop or Priority), the expected trac density (Lower or Higher) and the number of passages (First or Second passage). Fourteen participants were installed in an instrumented vehicle equipped with an eye-tracker. They drove during 1h45 along a 80-km long route, mainly on rural roads, which included 19 intersections. Visual attention was studied by means of the head and gaze horizontal eccentricity. Eects were found for each of the three factors, in agreement with Wickens' theoretical framework and with previous studies, despite the important variability in the data due to the experimental situation.
Differences in Off-Road Glances: Effects on Young Drivers’ Performance
Journal of Transportation Engineering, 2010
Young drivers display more risk-taking behavior than other age groups. Performing distracting tasks is a risky behavior that young drivers tend to engage in, but may not be able to compensate for appropriately. A driving simulator study with 53 young drivers (aged 18 to 21) was conducted to assess the level of engagement with an in-vehicle secondary task. A cluster analysis revealed three groups of drivers that significantly differed based on eye glance behavior and driving performance: drivers with low risk, moderate risk, and high risk behavior. A subgroup of these drivers was provided with feedback to help modulate their distracting activities. The results suggest that the riskiest group benefited most from feedback. The findings have implications for developing better crash countermeasures to mitigate the effects of distraction.
Are we looking where we are going? An exploratory examination of eye movement in high speed driving
This paper reports on results of an exploratory study aimed at examining driver glance behaviour, near the onset of and during congestion on motorways and how it is affected by factors external to the vehicle. Data has been collected on eye movements from six test subjects, each undertaking three test drives. Analysis has examined average glance times and fraction of time spent looking into a number of broadly defined areas. The study has revealed that on the whole drivers spend 80% of their time looking into a 'forward' area and, on average, look away from the forward scene for around 0.65 sec. at a time. In addition to variations between subjects, factors such as road section were found to contribute to variation, however no firm dependence on the level of traffic flow was found. It is hoped that this exploratory study has helped to reveal a number of 'baseline' dependencies regarding glance behaviour, and further, that this information will be of use to a range of fields, from the design of invehicle telematics systems, though to simulation science.
Attention maintenance in novice drivers–assessment and training
… Factors in Driving …, 2009
Summary: All programs assessing attention maintenance inside the vehicle have required eye trackers and either a driving simulator or a specially equipped field vehicle. Ideally, one would like a way to assess attention maintenance that could be implemented on a desktop PC. Additionally, one would like to have a program that could be used to train novice drivers to maintain their attention more safely on the forward roadway. An experiment was run (a) to determine whether a program FOCAL (Focused Concentration and Attention Learning) ...
We 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 (R 2 = 0.88) and novice drivers (R 2 = 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 th...