The effects of disruption in attention on driving performance patterns: analysis of jerk-cost function and vehicle control data

Development of an fMRI-compatible driving simulator with simultaneous measurement of physiological and kinematic signals: The multi-biosignal measurement system for driving (MMSD)

BACKGROUND:

A system that comprehensively analyzes a complex perceptual-motor behavior such as driving, by measuring changes in the central and autonomic nervous systems integrated with measurement of changes in vehicle operation, is lacking.

OBJECTIVE:

We aimed to develop a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)-compatible driving simulator to enable simultaneous measurement of physiological, kinematic, and brain activations.

METHODS:

The system mainly comprises a driving simulator and physiological/kinematic measurement. The driving simulator comprises a steering wheel, an accelerator, a brake pedal, and a virtual-reality optical system. The physiological system comprises a skin-conductance-level and a photoplethysmographic meter. The kinematic system comprises a 3-axis accelerometer and a 2-axis gyroscope attached to the accelerator foot. To evaluate the influence of the MR system on the MMSD, physiological and kinematic signals were measured.

RESULTS:

The system did not blur or deform the MR image. Moreover, the main magnetic field, the gradient magnetic field, and the RF pulse of the MR system did not introduce noise into the physiological or kinematic signals.

CONCLUSION:

This system can enable a comprehensive evaluation of cognitively complex behaviors such as driving, by quantitatively measuring and analyzing concurrent brain activity, autonomic nervous system activity, and human movement during simulated driving.

Should I Text or Call Here? A Situation-Based Analysis of Drivers' Perceived Likelihood of Engaging in Mobile Phone Multitasking

This study investigated how situational characteristics typically encountered in the transport system influence drivers' perceived likelihood of engaging in mobile phone multitasking. The impacts of mobile phone tasks, perceived environmental complexity/risk, and drivers' individual differences were evaluated as relevant individual predictors within the behavioral adaptation framework. An innovative questionnaire, which includes randomized textual and visual scenarios, was administered to collect data from a sample of 447 drivers in South East Queensland-Australia (66% females; n = 296). The likelihood of engaging in a mobile phone task across various scenarios was modeled by a random parameters ordered probit model. Results indicated that drivers who are female, are frequent users of phones for texting/answering calls, have less favorable attitudes towards safety, and are highly disinhibited were more likely to report stronger intentions of engaging in mobile phone multitasking. However, more years with a valid driving license, self-efficacy toward self-regulation in demanding traffic conditions and police enforcement, texting tasks, and demanding traffic conditions were negatively related to self-reported likelihood of mobile phone multitasking. The unobserved heterogeneity warned of riskier groups among female drivers and participants who need a lot of convincing to believe that multitasking while driving is dangerous. This research concludes that behavioral adaptation theory is a robust framework explaining self-regulation of distracted drivers.

Differences in driving performance due to headway distances and gender: the application of jerk cost function

Driving is directly controlled by the driver's movement. This study tried to compare differences in gender and headway distances between the DRIVING phase and the SUDDEN STOP phase by using subjects' movement during driving in the simulator. To quantify subjects' movement, the jerk cost function (JC) was used, and conventional vehicle control parameters such as the coefficient of variation of the mediolateral trajectory (MLCV) for lane keeping and the brake time (BT) were also used. As the headway distance increased, MLCV and JC decreased significantly in the DRIVING phase. In the SUDDEN STOP phase, BT was increased and, MLCV and JC were decreased. Differences between genders were detected for both MLCV (males < females) and JC (males > females). The results of this study demonstrate that JC may be used as a variable in evaluating driving performance as influenced by driving conditions and gender.

A meta-analysis of the effects of texting on driving

Text messaging while driving is considered dangerous and known to produce injuries and fatalities. However, the effects of text messaging on driving performance have not been synthesized or summarily estimated. All available experimental studies that measured the effects of text messaging on driving were identified through database searches using variants of "driving" and "texting" without restriction on year of publication through March 2014. Of the 1476 abstracts reviewed, 82 met general inclusion criteria. Of these, 28 studies were found to sufficiently compare reading or typing text messages while driving with a control or baseline condition. Independent variables (text-messaging tasks) were coded as typing, reading, or a combination of both. Dependent variables included eye movements, stimulus detection, reaction time, collisions, lane positioning, speed and headway. Statistics were extracted from studies to compute effect sizes (rc). A total sample of 977 participants from 28 experimental studies yielded 234 effect size estimates of the relationships among independent and dependent variables. Typing and reading text messages while driving adversely affected eye movements, stimulus detection, reaction time, collisions, lane positioning, speed and headway. Typing text messages alone produced similar decrements as typing and reading, whereas reading alone had smaller decrements over fewer dependent variables. Typing and reading text messages affects drivers' capability to adequately direct attention to the roadway, respond to important traffic events, control a vehicle within a lane and maintain speed and headway. This meta-analysis provides convergent evidence that texting compromises the safety of the driver, passengers and other road users. Combined efforts, including legislation, enforcement, blocking technologies, parent modeling, social media, social norms and education, will be required to prevent continued deaths and injuries from texting and driving.

Evaluation of the safety and usability of touch gestures in operating in-vehicle information systems with visual occlusion

Nowadays, many automobile manufacturers are interested in applying the touch gestures that are used in smart phones to operate their in-vehicle information systems (IVISs). In this study, an experiment was performed to verify the applicability of touch gestures in the operation of IVISs from the viewpoints of both driving safety and usability. In the experiment, two devices were used: one was the Apple iPad, with which various touch gestures such as flicking, panning, and pinching were enabled; the other was the SK EnNavi, which only allowed tapping touch gestures. The participants performed the touch operations using the two devices under visually occluded situations, which is a well-known technique for estimating load of visual attention while driving. In scrolling through a list, the flicking gestures required more time than the tapping gestures. Interestingly, both the flicking and simple tapping gestures required slightly higher visual attention. In moving a map, the average time taken per operation and the visual attention load required for the panning gestures did not differ from those of the simple tapping gestures that are used in existing car navigation systems. In zooming in/out of a map, the average time taken per pinching gesture was similar to that of the tapping gesture but required higher visual attention. Moreover, pinching gestures at a display angle of 75° required that the participants severely bend their wrists. Because the display angles of many car navigation systems tends to be more than 75°, pinching gestures can cause severe fatigue on users' wrists. Furthermore, contrary to participants' evaluation of other gestures, several participants answered that the pinching gesture was not necessary when operating IVISs. It was found that the panning gesture is the only touch gesture that can be used without negative consequences when operating IVISs while driving. The flicking gesture is likely to be used if the screen moving speed is slower or if the car is in heavy traffic. However, the pinching gesture is not an appropriate method of operating IVISs while driving in the various scenarios examined in this study.

Driving performance changes of middle-aged experienced taxi drivers due to distraction tasks during unexpected situations

This study investigated the effects of distraction taskssuch as sending a text message with a cellphone and searching navigation with car navigation system-on the driving performance of 29 highly experienced taxi drivers in their 50s. All participants were instructed to drive using a driving simulator for 2 min. while maintaining a constant distance from the vehicle in front and a constant speed. Participants drove without any distractions for the first minute. For an additional minute, they performed Driving Only or performed a task while driving (Driving + Sending Text Message or Driving + Searching Navigation). An unexpected situation, in which the participant had to stop abruptly due to a sudden stop of the preceding vehicle, occurred during this period. Driving performance during the unexpected situation was evaluated by car control variables, medial-lateral coefficient of variation and brake time, and by motion variables such as the jerk-cost function. Compared to Driving Only, jerk-cost function, medial-lateral coefficient of variation, and brake time increased during Driving + Sending Text Message or Driving + Searching Navigation.