Self-Interruptions of Non-Driving Related Tasks in Automated Vehicles: Mobile vs Head-Up Display

Abstract:

Automated driving raises new human factors challenges. There is a paradox that allows drivers to perform non-driving related tasks (NDRTs), while benefiting from a driver who regularly attends to the driving task. Systems that aim to better manage a driver’s attention, encouraging task switching and interleaving, may help address this paradox. However, a better understanding of how drivers self-interrupt while engaging in NDRTs is required to inform such systems. This paper presents a counterbalanced within-subject simulator study with N=42 participants experiencing automated driving in a familiar driving environment. Participants chose a TV show to watch on a HUD and mobile display during two 15min drives on the same route. Eye and head tracking data revealed more self-interruptions in the HUD condition, suggesting a higher likelihood of a higher situation awareness. Our results may benefit the design of future attention management systems by informing the visual and temporal integration of the driving and non-driving related task.

Michael A. Gerber, Ronald Schroeter, Li Xiaomeng, and Mohammed Elhenawy. 2020. Self-Interruptions of Non-Driving Related Tasks in Automated Vehicles: Mobile vs Head-Up Display. Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1–9. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376751