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Summary: Information, communication, and navigation devices need to be evaluated for ease-of-use and safety while driving. Lab tests, if validated, can evaluate prototype designs faster, more economically, and earlier than on-road tests. The Static Load Test was evaluated for its ability to predict on-road driver performance while using in-vehicle devices. In this test, participants perform various in-vehicle tasks in a lab while viewing a videotaped road scene on a monitor, tapping a brake pedal when a central or peripheral light is observed. For the on-road comparison test, the device, tasks, and lights are the same, but the participants also drive the vehicle while performing the tasks and responding to the lights. In both the lab and road tests, ten driver performance variables were measured. Our goal was to produce a linear model to predict an on-road variable from the lab data with low residual error, high percent variance explained, and few errors in classifying tasks as meeting or not meeting on-road driver performance criteria. Separate test data from a replicated Static Load Test at an independent lab were used to further validate the models. The results indicate a simple, inexpensive, and low-fidelity Static Load Test can accurately predict a number of on-road driver performance variables suitable for assessing the safety and ease-of-use of advanced in-vehicle devices while driving.

This experiment investigated the influence of warnings, signal words, and a signal icon on perceived hazard of consumer products. Under the guise of a marketing research study, 135 people (high school students, college students, and participants from a shopping mall) rated product labels on six dimensions, including how hazardous they perceived the products to be. A total of 16 labels from actual household products were used: 9 carried the experimental conditions, and 7 were filler product labels that never carried a warning. Five conditions presented the signal words NOTE, CAUTION, WARNING, DANGER, and LETHAL together with a brief warning message. In another two conditions, a signal icon (exclamation point surrounded by a triangle) was presented together with the terms DANGER and LETHAL. In the final two conditions, one lacked a signal word but retained the warning message, and the other lacked both the warning message and the signal word. Results showed that the presence of a signal word increased perceived product hazard compared with its absence. Significant differences were noted between extreme terms (e.g., NOTE and DANGER) but not between terms usually recommended in warning design guidelines (e.g., CAUTION and WARNING). The signal icon showed no significant effect on hazard perception. Implications of the results and the value of the methodology for future warnings investigations are discussed.