Comparing haptic and audio navigation cues on the road for distracted drivers with a skin stretch steering wheel

Abstract

A steering wheel modified to produce lateral skin stretch provides perceptible cues in a vehicle being driven on the road. We conducted tests to determine whether drivers can correctly perceive and react to skin stretch navigation cues. Additionally, we compare skin stretch feedback to audio navigation cues during an auditory N-back distraction task simulating a phone call. Results show a statistically significant difference (p-value = 0.044) between haptic (98.5%) and audio feedback (96.6%) in navigation accuracy and in N-back response accuracy (haptic = 89.9%, audio = 87.2%, p-value = 0.047).