Auditory alerts for in-vehicle information systems: The effects of temporal conflict and sound parameters on driver attitudes and performance

Abstract

In-vehicle information systems will soon confront drivers with an increasing number of warnings and alerts for situations ranging from imminent collisions to the arrival of e-mail messages. Coordinating these alerts can ensure that they enhance rather than degrade driving safety. Two experiments examined how temporal conflict and sound parameters affect driver performance and acceptance. The temporal conflict of an e-mail alert occurring 300 ms before a collision warning interfered with the response to the collision warning, but an email alert occurring 1000 ms before the collision warning had the opposite effect and enhanced the response to the collision warning. These results emphasize the need to consider how in-vehicle devices influence drivers' strategic anticipation of high-demand situations. Regarding sound parameters, results showed that highly urgent sounds tended to speed drivers' accelerator release, but the annoyance associated with highly urgent sounds increased workload. In fact, there was a strong positive association between ratings of annoyance and subjective workload. Consistent with the urgency mapping principle, there was a slight negative association between the differences in the rated urgency of collision warnings and e-mail alerts and subjective workload. The results suggest that warning and alert design should consider an annoyance trade-off in addition to urgency mapping.

Potential benefits of an adaptive forward collision warning system

“…A similar trend, but not one that quite reached significance, was found for sensation seeking. The more appropriately timed warnings of the adaptive system appear to have a similar positive effect on mental effort, a result not dissimilar to that reported by Wiese and Lee (2004).…”

“…Whilst drivers were well able to recognise the safety benefits of FCW, one-third of participants would have switched the system off had they been given the opportunity. There is also evidence to show that poorly timed warnings can also adversely affect driver workload (Wiese and Lee, 2004) Since the benefits of FCW are well established, efforts have been made to design a system that is also well accepted by drivers. Brown et al (2001) compared a kinematics-based algorithm (Burgett et al, 1998) and one that used a time-to-collision threshold with an adjustment for vehicle speed (Hirst and Graham, 1997).…”

Sensor-Actuator Supported Implicit Interaction in Driver Assistance Systems

“…In an experimental study, Wheatley et al [163] found that 53% of the subjects felt that an auditory warning tone actually interfered with their ability to drive safely and 59% indicated that it was more difficult to concentrate on driving. Wiese et al [311] showed that drivers' annoyance associated with highly urgent sounds increased their workload (a strong positive association between ratings of annoyance and subjective workload).…”

A Logic Architecture for 360 ADAS-Alerts for Hazards Detection Based in Driver Actions

“…Distraction: As stated above, if the alert system is not precisely designed, it may involve distraction during driving due to confusion about the type of alert or risk detected, which generates a high mental workload and usually means a change in the attention of the road to dashboard or infotainment system [7]. Modern vehicle security systems display information on a central screen that is sometimes overloaded due to the amount of information being displayed to the user (music, GPS, social media, application system status, alerts, etc.…”