Evaluating Multimodal Driver Displays Under Varying Situational Urgency

Politis, I., Brewster, S. A. and Pollick, F. (2014) Evaluating Multimodal Driver Displays Under Varying Situational Urgency. In: CHI 2014: ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Toronto, Canada, 26 April - 1 May 2014, pp. 4067-4076. ISBN 9781450324731 (doi: 10.1145/2556288.2556988)

Abstract

Previous studies have investigated audio, visual and tactile driver warnings, indicating the importance of communicating the appropriate level of urgency to the drivers. However, these modalities have never been combined exhaustively and tested under conditions of varying situational urgency to assess their effectiveness both in the presence and absence of critical driving events. This paper describes an experiment evaluating all multimodal combinations of such warnings under two contexts of situational urgency: a lead car braking and not braking. The results showed that participants responded quicker to more urgent warnings, especially in the presence of a car braking. They also responded faster to the multimodal as opposed to unimodal signals. Driving behaviour improved in the presence of the warnings and the absence of a car braking. These results highlight the influence of urgency and number of modalities in warning design and indicate the utility of non-visual warnings in driving.

• Item Type: Conference Proceedings
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Pollick, Professor Frank and Brewster, Professor Stephen
• Authors: Politis, I., Brewster, S. A., and Pollick, F.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Computing Science; College of Science and Engineering > School of Psychology
• ISBN: 9781450324731
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2014 The Authors
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher