A Novel Approach to Sensorimotor Skill Acquisition Utilizing Sensory Substitution: A Driving Simulation Study

Sayako Ueda,Hiroyuki Sakai,Takatsune Kumada

doi:10.1038/s41598-019-54324-6

Abstract

The aim of this study is to demonstrate the potential of sensory substitution/augmentation (SS/A) techniques for driver assistance systems in a simulated driving environment. Using a group-comparison design, we examined lane-keeping skill acquisition in a driving simulator that can provide information regarding vehicle lateral position by changing the binaural balance of auditory white noise delivered to the driver. Consequently, lane-keeping accuracy was significantly degraded when the lower visual scene (proximal part of the road) was occluded, suggesting it conveyed critical visual information necessary for lane keeping. After 40 minutes of training with auditory cueing of vehicle lateral position, lane-keeping accuracy returned to the baseline (normal driving) level. This indicates that auditory cueing can compensate for the loss of visual information. Taken together, our data suggest that auditory cueing of vehicle lateral position is sufficient for lane-keeping skill acquisition and that SS/A techniques can potentially be used for the development of driver assistance systems, particularly for situations where immediate time-sensitive actions are required in response to rapidly changing sensory information. Although this study is the first to apply SS/A techniques to driver assistance, further studies are however required to establish the generalizability of the findings to real-world settings.

Highlights

A number of sensory substitution devices have been proposed to facilitate sensory remapping in sensory-impaired individuals
In the normal driving (ND) training condition (Fig. 2A), vehicle lateral position appeared to be relatively constant from the last trial of the pretest session to the last trial of the training session
In the VO training condition (Fig. 2B), as a result of the visual occlusion of the proximal part of the road, vehicle lateral position was found to be unstable throughout the entire training session compared with the last trial of the pretest session

Summary

Introduction

A number of sensory substitution devices have been proposed to facilitate sensory remapping in sensory-impaired individuals. Nagel et al.[9] proposed a waist belt-type vibration device that constantly indicates the magnetic north using a built-in digital compass They demonstrated that individuals after six weeks of training could successfully learn to use the novel sense of magnetic orientation for navigation in outdoor environments. In another example, Konttinen et al.[10] developed an auditory feedback system to augment the somatosensory information received during rifle shooting. It should be noted here that these experimental configurations were designed to test the applicability of SS/A techniques to driver assistance using a well-studied occlusion paradigm[12,13], rather than to show whether the auditory cueing of vehicle lateral position is useful for lane-keeping in real traffic situations

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Results

Discussion

Conclusion