Effectiveness of Automotive Warning System Presented with Multiple Sensory Modalities (original) (raw)

Effectiveness of Tactile Warning and Voice Command for Enhancing Safety of Drivers

IEEE Access, 2022

Safety is impaired when drivers are required to perform main driving task (tracking of own car, distance maintenance between own car and a leading car, and response to target objects) and secondary task simultaneously, for example, responding to target cars on the road while operating in-vehicle equipment. A two-factor (presence or absence of tactile warning by input modality (no secondary task, voice command for a secondary task, and manual input for a secondary task)) within-subject design of ten licensed males was used to investigate how to compensate for safety impairments (decreased performance of a main and a secondary task such as increased tracking error during driving or increased reaction time to target cars on the road). We investigated whether the use of tactile warnings transmitted via left and right thighs for detecting road objects and voice command to operate in-vehicle equipment could compensate for safety impairments such as the increased reaction time to target cars on the road, the increase of detection error of target cars, or increased tracking error in driving. The accuracy and speed of responses to target cars encountered during driving were reduced when a driver was asked to perform the main and the secondary task simultaneously compared to situations performing only the main driving task (tracking, distance maintenance, and response to target cars). The availability of a tactile warning system for road objects compensated for these diminished performance measures, including slower response times and the increased detection error of target cars. Likewise, voice command contributed to enhanced performance of the main driving task such as decrease of tracking error. INDEX TERMS Automotive safety, interference of multiple tasks, tactile warning, voice command. I. INTRODUCTION 19 The need to perform multiple tasks while driving increases a 20 driver's visual and cognitive workload and substantially com-21 plicates the driver-vehicle interaction. Safety will be impaired 22 due to inattentive driving during multi-task performance [1], 23 [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8]. The need to perform multi-24 ple tasks simultaneously while driving can result in delayed 25 responses to hazardous situations and increased potentials for 26 crashes. 27 The associate editor coordinating the review of this manuscript and approving it for publication was Roberto Sacile. a simulated main driving task. Participants were required 217 to maintain velocity within the speed limit of 80 km/h and 218 to maintain a specific distance between their cars and the 219 leading cars using the accelerator and the brake pedal of 220 the steering controller. We developed the driving simulator 221 using Hot Soup Processor 3.4. Four tactors with a diameter 222 of 45 mm (Acouve Laboratory Inc., Vp216) were used for 223 tactile warning. According to Murata et al. [13], the vibration 224 frequency of tactor was set to 64 Hz with an amplitude 225 of 10 Vp-p. The tactors were installed on the surface of 226 the driver's seat according to Murata et al. [13] so that the 227 vibration could be transmitted via left and right thighs. The 228 SOA (Stimulus Onset Asynchrony) and the duration of tactile 229 stimulation were set to 1 s and 1 s, respectively, according 230 to Murata et al. [13]. The SOA of 1 s meant that a warn-231 ing was presented to the participant 1 s before a target car 232 appeared. 233 The approximate layouts of the in-vehicle displays and the 234 GUI task are shown in Figure 2. As Japanese driver's seats are 235 located on the right, the driver seat was located on the right as 236 shown in Figure 2. Two 7-inch liquid crystal display (LCDs) Hypothesis 2, that is also related to tactile warning and the 659 main driving task, predicts that fast responses to target cars 660 do not improve the efficiency of other driving activity such as 661 tracking and distance maintenance, although rapid responses 662 to targets cars was promoted by tactile warning as verified 663 above. As shown in Figures 5 and 6, tactile warning did not 664 contribute to the mitigation of spatial processing competition 665 among tracking, distance maintenance, and responses to tar-666 get cars during driving, which verified Hypothesis 2. 667 Hypothesis 3 includes the concept of resource competition 668 for central processing and is concerned with both tactile warn-669 ing and voice command. There is no resource competition 670 for central processing between a secondary GUI task (verbal 671 processing) and a reaction task to target cars on the road 672 (spatial processing). As shown in Figure 9, fast responses to 673 target cars by tactile warning led to fast responses in the GUI 674 task, which was in support of Hypothesis 3. 675 Hypothesis 4 is related to voice command and tactile warn-676 ing and avoidance of response modality competition between 677 manual input to a GUI task and manual responses during 678 driving such as manual tracking or distance maintenance, 679

Looming Auditory and Vibrotactile Collision Warning for Safe Driving

Proceedings of the 7th International Driving Symposium on Human Factors in Driver Assessment, Training, and Vehicle Design : driving assessment 2013

Looming auditory warning signals (that is, signals whose intensity increases over time) have proven to be particularly effective in terms of reducing a driver's brake reaction times (BRTs) to impending collisions, and are also associated with very low false alarm rates. We report two experiments designed to further investigate how the presentation of looming auditory warnings with increasing frequency or increasing spatial extent would compare to those with increasing intensity. A third experiment was conducted in order to evaluate the potential efficacy of presenting looming warnings to drivers in another modality, namely via vibrotactile signals. Participants' speeded BRTs to potential collision events following the presentation of various warning signals in a simulated car following scenario were measured. While both looming frequency and spatial warnings were effective in terms of speeding the driver's responses to critical driving events, the magnitude of the benefit resembled that of a typical nonlooming constant intensity warning. Looming intensity warnings outperformed their looming frequency counterparts in terms of facilitating drivers' collision avoidance responses. As for vibrotactile warnings, the results revealed that looming vibrotactile stimuli did not offer any additional benefits over and above the other non-looming vibrations tested in the study. The implications of these findings for collision warning systems design are discussed.

Looming auditory and vibrotactile collision warnings for safe driving

Proceedings of the 7th International Driving Symposium on Human Factors in Driver Assessment, Training, and Vehicle Design, 2013

Looming auditory warning signals (that is, signals whose intensity increases over time) have proven to be particularly effective in terms of reducing a driver’s brake reaction times (BRTs) to impending collisions, and are also associated with very low false alarm rates. We report two experiments designed to further investigate how the presentation of looming auditory warnings with increasing frequency or increasing spatial extent would compare to those with increasing intensity. A third experiment was conducted in order to evaluate the potential efficacy of presenting looming warnings to drivers in another modality, namely via vibrotactile signals. Participants’ speeded BRTs to potential collision events following the presentation of various warning signals in a simulated car following scenario were measured. While both looming frequency and spatial warnings were effective in terms of speeding the driver’s responses to critical driving events, the magnitude of the benefit resembled that of a typical nonlooming constant intensity warning. Looming intensity warnings outperformed their looming frequency counterparts in terms of facilitating drivers’ collision avoidance responses. As for vibrotactile warnings, the results revealed that looming vibrotactile stimuli did not offer any additional benefits over and above the other non-looming vibrations tested in the study. The implications of these findings for collision warning systems design are discussed."

Basic study on effectiveness of tactile interface for warning presentation in driving environment

International Journal of Knowledge Engineering and Soft Data Paradigms, 2011

The aim of this study was to get insight into the development of tactile interface for automobile warning system. In other words, it was investigated whether the important driving information in the right and left peripheral visual fields can be recognized faster using tactile warning system as compared with auditory warning system. The participants were required to simultaneously carry out a tracking task (main task), a switch pressing task such as selection of light-on function, and a judgment task of important information which randomly appeared to the right or left peripheral visual field. The tracking error, the number of lane deviation, the percentage correct of switch pressing, and the response time to right and left peripheral stimulus were measured. It was examined how age, the modality of alarm presentation (no alarm, auditory, and tactile), the addition of direction in alarm presentation, and the existence of disturbance sound, and the location of tactile sensor (steering or foot) affected the measures above. The young adults performed better than older adults. The response time was not affected by the modality of alarm presentation, and the disturbance sound. The addition of direction of alarm presentation affected the performance. The tactile sensor attached to the foot led to faster response than that attached to the steering wheel.

Looming Auditory Collision Warnings for Driving

Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and …, 2011

Objective: A driving simulator was used to compare the effectiveness of increasing intensity (looming) auditory warning signals with other types of auditory warnings.

Tactile and multisensory spatial warning signals for drivers

Haptics, IEEE Transactions on, 2008

The last few years have seen many exciting developments in the area of tactile and multisensory interface design. One of the most rapidly moving practical application areas for these findings is in the development of warning signals and information displays for drivers. For instance, tactile displays can be used to awaken sleepy drivers, to capture the attention of distracted drivers, and even to present more complex information to drivers who may be visually overloaded. This review highlights the most important potential costs and benefits associated with the use of tactile and multisensory information displays in a vehicular setting. Multisensory displays that are based on the latest cognitive neuroscience research findings can capture driver attention significantly more effectively than their unimodal (i.e., tactile) counterparts. Multisensory displays can also be used to transmit information more efficiently, as well as to reduce driver workload. Finally, we highlight the key questions currently awaiting further research, including: Are tactile warning signals really intuitive? Are there certain regions of the body (or the space surrounding the body) where tactile/multisensory warning signals are particularly effective? To what extent is the spatial coincidence and temporal synchrony of the individual sensory signals critical to determining the effectiveness of multisensory displays? And, finally, how does the issue of compliance versus reliance (or the "cry wolf" phenomenon associated with the presentation of signals that are perceived as false alarms) influence the effectiveness of tactile and/ or multisensory warning signals?

Principle Other Vehicle Warning

2014

The only possibility for a driver to avoid a collision may sometimes be to issue a warning to another driver. Connecting the horn and the headlight to an already existing sensor system could be a cost effective solution. This report covers the implementation and evaluation of such an automated warning system in a driving simulator at VTI. In this test 24 drivers with normal hearing and 24 with moderate hearing loss experienced five critical events in which four different warning signals were evaluated; sound, light, and a combination of sound and light, and no warning (as reference). A visual distraction task was used to distract the drivers and create critical situations. The results were consistent. A combined sound and light warning significantly increased cautious driving behaviour and also lead to the highest perceived criticality of the situations. With the combined warning the driver’s attention was effectively drawn from the visual distraction task. Drivers were generally po...

The comparison of different sensory outputs on the driving overtake alarm system

2011

Most car accidents are caused by improper driving behaviors. Studies have shown that changing lanes improperly is one of the main causes of traffic accidents. This shows that drivers need an assisting alarm system to help them avoid the danger during overtaking. We also found that the existing alarm system and researches try to use different sensory outputs as the alarm signals. However, there were no studies to compare how the different sensory alarm signals affect the drivers. Therefore, in this study, we have setup three kinds of alarm signals (visual, sound, and haptic alarm signals) to see which one is more suitable at the high speed context. On top of that, the sensitivity of the alarm system may be the other key factor that affects drivers' behaviors. So, we manipulate two most commonly shown alarm signal frequencies when the driver feels threatened. The results of this study have proven that the sound and haptic signals are better than visual outputs when drivers are put in a high visual loading situation. This result could be the guideline for future designers of a driving alarm system.

Advanced driver assistance systems: Using multimodal redundant warnings to enhance road safety

Applied Ergonomics, 2017

This study investigated whether multimodal redundant warnings presented by advanced assistance systems reduce brake response times. Warnings presented by assistance systems are designed to assist drivers by informing them that evasive driving maneuvers are needed in order to avoid a potential accident. If these warnings are poorly designed, they may distract drivers, slow their responses, and reduce road safety. In two experiments, participants drove a simulated vehicle equipped with a forward collision avoidance system. Auditory, vibrotactile, and multimodal warnings were presented when the time to collision was shorter than five seconds. The effects of these warnings were investigated with participants performing a concurrent cell phone conversation (Exp. 1) or driving in high-density traffic (Exp. 2). Braking times and subjective workload were measured. Multimodal redundant warnings elicited faster braking reaction times. These warnings were found to be effective even when talking on a cell phone (Exp. 1) or driving in dense traffic (Exp. 2). Multimodal warnings produced higher ratings of urgency, but ratings of frustration did not increase compared to other warnings. Findings obtained in these two experiments are important given that faster braking responses may reduce the potential for a collision.