Isolating the Effect of Off-Road Glance Duration on Driving Performance: An Exemplar Study Comparing HDD and HUD in Different Driving Scenarios.

Missie Smith,Gary Burnett,David R Large,Joseph L Gabbard,Kiran Bagalkotkar

doi:10.1177/00187208211031416

Abstract

We controlled participants' glance behavior while using head-down displays (HDDs) and head-up displays (HUDs) to isolate driving behavioral changes due to use of different display types across different driving environments. Recently, HUD technology has been incorporated into vehicles, allowing drivers to, in theory, gather display information without moving their eyes away from the road. Previous studies comparing the impact of HUDs with traditional displays on human performance show differences in both drivers' visual attention and driving performance. Yet no studies have isolated glance from driving behaviors, which limits our ability to understand the cause of these differences and resulting impact on display design. We developed a novel method to control visual attention in a driving simulator. Twenty experienced drivers sustained visual attention to in-vehicle HDDs and HUDs while driving in both a simple straight and empty roadway environment and a more realistic driving environment that included traffic and turns. In the realistic environment, but not the simpler environment, we found evidence of differing driving behaviors between display conditions, even though participants' glance behavior was similar. Thus, the assumption that visual attention can be evaluated in the same way for different types of vehicle displays may be inaccurate. Differences between driving environments bring the validity of testing HUDs using simplistic driving environments into question. As we move toward the integration of HUD user interfaces into vehicles, it is important that we develop new, sensitive assessment methods to ensure HUD interfaces are indeed safe for driving.

Highlights

Future in-vehicle displays may provide visual information to users by overlying graphics through the windshield and onto the surrounding environment, advancing potential capability of invehicle displays
We found no significant differences in lane position, but head-down displays (HDD) use was associated with increasing Standard deviation of lane position (SDLP) over time which was higher than when using head-up displays (HUD)
Even when the duration of focused visual attention was the same, driving performance differed between HUD and HDD

Summary

Introduction

Future in-vehicle displays may provide visual information to users by overlying graphics through the windshield and onto the surrounding environment, advancing potential capability of invehicle displays. These advanced HUD interfaces must be assessed for fitness for in-vehicle use to minimize risk to roadway users. Researchers often assess in-vehicle displays by focusing on glance behaviors, such as the duration or frequency of glance fixations on specific areas of the road or surrounding environment. While ignoring peripheral visual cues may be valid for HDD testing, but a key benefit of HUDs is drivers’ ability to gather information using peripheral vision while using the display

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