Augmented reality landmarks on windshield and their effects on the acquisition of spatial knowledge in autonomous vehicles

Abstract

ABSTRACT Autonomous vehicles, which free drivers from driving, are gaining increasing interest for future travel needs. But the degradation of driver’s spatial knowledge will likely worsen when drivers no longer need to actively steer nor pay attention to the environment. This study extends the theory of visualising distant landmarks on mobile phone to windshield using Augmented Reality (AR), to support spatial learning. This study investigates the impact of AR distant landmarks (with vs. without AR landmarks) and road conditions (highway vs. local road) on acquiring spatial knowledge through an experiment using simulated videos of autonomous driving. Participants are randomly assigned to one of two scenarios to complete tasks which assessed their acquired spatial knowledge one the route-, directional, and configural levels. Results show that distant landmarks enhance the efficiency of acquiring route- and directional knowledge, although the effectiveness of acquiring route knowledge with AR landmarks is not significant on local road. Configurational knowledge is more likely impacted by the road type instead of the AR landmarks. The results indciate the necessity of carrying out follow-up studies on symbolising additional information in AR landmarks for supporting spatial learning and evaluate their impacts on the spatial knowledge at the configurational level.