Driver Trust, Annoyance, and Acceptance of an Automated Calendar System

Abstract

Driver annoyance, trust, and workload were manipulated in a simulated driving task with an unreliable auditory calendar system side task while cardiovascular measures were collected. Participants performed a car-following task in either a difficult or easy driving condition while interacting with an automated voice calendar. The automated calendar system used a spoken alert to notify drivers as they approached a desired location (i.e., “pharmacy”). Reliability was manipulated at 90, 70, 50, and 30 percent correct prediction of the location. Drivers also experienced of one of four auditory alerts (none, 60, 75, or 90 dB SPL) designed to elicit subjective annoyance. Low-frequency hear rate variability (LF-HRV, 0.10 Hz band variance) was suppressed during high workload and differed between baseline driving and driving with the calendar system. LF-HRV suggested that cognitive effort was lower for more reliable systems with an alarm tone.