Structural Equation Modeling of Drivers’ Situation Awareness Considering Road and Driver Factors

Abstract

Driver's situation awareness (SA) is one of the key elements that affect driving decisionmaking and driving behavior. SA is influenced by many factors, and previous studies have focused only on individual factors. This study presents a comprehensive study to explore the path relationships and influence mechanism between SA and all influential factors, including road characteristics, driver characteristics and states, distracting elements, and cognitive ability. A structural equation model that relates SA to its influential factors is developed. A total of 324 valid questionnaires were collected to analyze and identify the relationships between the factors. The results show that the preceding influential factors have significant effects on SA, which is consistent with previous research. Based on path coefficients, positive effects were: cognitive abilities (0.500), driver state (0.360), age (0.277), driving experience (0.198), and gender (0.156). Negative effects were: distracting elements (−0.253) and road characteristics (−0.213). The results of this comprehensive study provide a valuable reference for the development of driver training programs and driving regulations.

HMD-Based VR Tool for Traffic Psychological Examination: Conceptualization and Design Proposition

“…A crucial construct, which has been identified as a significant predictor of successful driving [52], is situational insight or situation awareness [53], in which both the assumptions of a standard TPE (such as intelligence or attention) and driving experience are involved. SA is commonly discussed in highly specialized areas such as air traffic control [54], military activities [55,56], remotely controlled vehicles operation [57] and it is also directly studied in the context of virtual car driving [58,59].…”

“…Smith and Hancock emphasize that both the processes of perception and the processes of memory and situational awareness are externally focused consciousness that creates knowledge about the current situation [64]. Situational insight thus represents a key category within TPE since previous studies suggested that a driver's SA is crucial for decision-making and behavior in driving [52]. Concurrently, they emphasized that SA is influenced by several basic factors, which were, actually, usually only studied separately.…”

“…Additionally, SA was negatively affected by distracting elements (−0.253) and road characteristics (−0.213). This notion emphasizes the key role of SA in the driving process and calls for development of effective measurement tools, since a previous study by Yang et al primarily employed the questionnaire method, which possesses many limitations regarding, e.g., subjectively reported values or limited ecological validity [52]. From this perspective, with respect to the above discussed properties, VR represents a strategic technology for follow-up research of driving as well as promising TPE tools for driving assessment.…”

“…Situational awareness is a complex construct where the majority of measured cognitive functions are involved, applied and demonstrated. Researchers should acknowledge that SA is influenced by the driver's working memory capacity [76], divided attention capacity [77], spatial perceptual ability, fatigue [52], emotional state [78], level of understanding of the car's driving system [79], monotonous task [80], conversation [81,82], hearing cell phone notifications [83], parallel driving of more vehicles in the virtual environment [84], complexity of the driving interface [85], integration of ear cons to the virtual environment [86] and availability of vestibular or somatosensory feedback [87]. Additionally, situation awareness might increase after seeing a hazardous event [88].…”

Evaluation of Mental Load of Drivers in Long Highway Tunnel Based on Electroencephalograph

“…Many researchers have studied essential driver characteristics, such as driver sleepiness (Resalat and Saba, 2015 ), drowsiness (Lin et al, 2005 ), fatigue (Jap et al, 2009 ; Arakawa et al, 2019 ), alertness level (Kiymik et al, 2004 ), and cognitive load (Barua et al, 2017 ). Other studies have used EEG, as the effect of color scheme (Yang et al, 2020a ), situation awareness (Yang et al, 2020b ), and the effect of directional signs (Yang et al, 2020c ). Other studies on brain activities, driver aggressiveness, music and emotion, and EEG classification have also been conducted (Fan et al, 2010 ; Liu et al, 2013 ; Lin et al, 2014 ; Yang et al, 2018 , 2019a ; Zeng et al, 2018 ).…”