On the relationship between occlusion times and in-car glance durations in simulated driving

Drivers have spare visual capacity in driving, and often this capacity is used for engaging in secondary in-car tasks. Previous research has suggested that the spare visual capacity could be estimated with the occlusion method. However, the relationship between drivers’ occlusion times and in-car glance duration preferences has not been sufficiently investigated for granting occlusion times the role of an estimate of spare visual capacity. We conducted a driving simulator experiment (N = 30) and investigated if there is an association between drivers’ occlusion times and in-car glance durations in a given driving scenario. Furthermore, we explored which factors and variables could explain t…

Hand-Held texting is less distracting than texting with the phone in a holder: anyway, don't do it

We studied the effects of texting while driving and the effects of mobile phone position (hand-held, holder) on drivers' lane-keeping performance, experienced workload, and in-car glance durations in a motion-platform driving simulator with 24 participants. Overall, we found the known negative effects of texting on lane-keeping performance, workload, and visual attention on road, suggesting that texting on the road in any manner is not risk-free. As a novel finding, we found that hand-held texting led to fewer lane-keeping errors and shorter total glance times off road compared to texting with the phone in a holder. We suggest the explanation is that the drivers had considerably more experi…

Luotettavampaa kuljettajan tarkkaamattomuuden mittaamista

Kuljettajan tarkkaamattomuutta on mahdollista vähentää kontekstiin sopivalla suunnittelulla. Palkitussa väitöskirjassa kehitetään luotettavampaa kuljettajan tarkkaamaattomuuden mittaamista sekä esitetään tarkkaamattomuutta vähentäviä suunnitteluratkaisuja. nonPeerReviewed

Error messages in relational database management systems: A comparison of effectiveness, usefulness, and user confidence

Abstract The database and the database management system (DBMS) are two of the main components of any information system. Structured Query Language (SQL) is the most popular query language for retrieving data from the database, as well as for many other data management tasks. During system development and maintenance, software developers use a considerable amount of time to interpret compiler error messages. The quality of these error messages has been demonstrated to affect software development effectiveness, and correctly formulating queries and fixing them when needed is an important task for many software developers. In this study, we set out to investigate how participants ( N = 152 ) …

Visual Distraction Effects between In-Vehicle Tasks with a Smartphone and a Motorcycle Helmet-Mounted Head-Up Display

Besides motorists, also motorcyclists need safer user interfaces to interact with useful applications on the road. In this paper, distraction effects of in-vehicle tasks conducted with a head-up display (HUD) for motorcyclists were compared to smartphone tasks with 24 participants in a driving simulator. Compared to the smartphone tasks, the head-up display tasks decreased the percentage of inappropriately long glances by 45 percent. The head-up display tasks were also experienced as less demanding than the smartphone tasks. Additionally, the use of head-up display for navigation did not lead to gaze concentration effects compared to baseline driving. The head-up display is concluded to be …

Expert Drivers' Prospective Thinking-Aloud to Enhance Automated Driving Technologies - Investigating Uncertainty and Anticipation in Traffic.

Abstract Current automated driving technology cannot cope in numerous conditions that are basic daily driving situations for human drivers. Previous studies show that profound understanding of human drivers’ capability to interpret and anticipate traffic situations is required in order to provide similar capacities for automated driving technologies. There is currently not enough a priori understanding of these anticipatory capacities for safe driving applicable to any given driving situation. To enable the development of safer, more economical, and more comfortable automated driving experience, expert drivers’ anticipations and related uncertainties were studied on public roads. First, dri…

On the Visual Distraction Effects of Audio-Visual Route Guidance

This is the first controlled quantitative analysis on the visual distraction effects of audio-visual route guidance in simulated, but ecologically realistic driving scenarios with dynamic maneuvers and self-controlled speed (N = 24). The audio-visual route guidance system under testing passed the set verification criteria, which was based on drivers’ preferred occlusion distances on the test routes. There were no significant effects of an upcoming maneuver instruction location (up, down) on the in-car display on any metric or on the experienced workload. The drivers’ median occlusion distances correlated significantly with median incar glance distances. There was no correlation between driv…

Refining distraction potential testing guidelines by considering differences in glancing behavior

Driver distraction is a recognized cause of traffic accidents. Although the well-known guidelines for measuring distraction of secondary in-car tasks were published by the United States National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in 2013, studies have raised concerns on the accuracy of the method defined in the guidelines, namely criticizing them for basing the diversity of the driver sample on driver age, and for inconsistent between-group results. In fact, it was recently discovered that the NHTSA driving simulator test is susceptible to rather fortuitous results when the participant sample is randomized. This suggests that the results of said test are highly dependent on the s…

Visual Distraction Effects of In-Car Text Entry Methods

Three text entry methods were compared in a driving simulator study with 17 participants. Ninety-seven drivers’ occlusion distance (OD) data mapped on the test routes was used as a baseline to evaluate the methods’ visual distraction potential. Only the voice recognition-based text entry tasks passed the set verification criteria. Handwriting tasks were experienced as the most demanding and the voice recognition tasks as the least demanding. An individual in-car glance length preference was found, but against expectations, drivers’ ODs did not correlate with incar glance lengths or visual short-term memory capacity. The handwriting method was further studied with 24 participants with instru…

User Psychology Lab, University of Jyväskylä

Impacts of Touch Screen Size, User Interface Design, and Subtask Boundaries on In-Car Task's Visual Demand and Driver Distraction

Visual distraction by secondary in-car tasks is a major contributing factor in traffic incidents. In-car user interface design may mitigate these negative effects but to accomplish this, design factors’ visual distraction potential should be better understood. The effects of touch screen size, user interface design, and subtask boundaries on in-car task's visual demand and visual distraction potential were studied in two driving simulator experiments with 48 participants. Multilevel modeling was utilized to control the visual demands of driving and individual differences on in-car glance durations. The 2.5” larger touch screen slightly decreased the in-car glance durations and had a diminis…

NewSQL Database Management System Compiler Errors : Effectiveness and Usefulness

Modern database management is often faced with a high number of concurrent end-users, and the need for database distribution to ensure fault tolerance and high throughput. To flexibly address these challenges, many modern database management systems (DBMS) provide highly automated and effortless, i.e., highly usable database distribution, deployment, and maintenance. However, the usability considerations are yet to extend from the aforementioned DBMS features to query language compilers. In this study, based on participant answers (N = 157), we compare the error message qualities of four modern DBMSs (CockroachDB, SingleStore, NuoDB, and VoltDB) using one objective and three subjective metr…

Hengenvaaralliset näprääjät

Yksilölliset erot kuljettajien katsepreferensseissä ja katseiden kestoihin vaikuttavat tekijät

Kuljettajien tarkkaamattomuus on maailmanlaajuinen ilmiö. Tarkkaamattomuuden vaikutuksia liikenneturvallisuuteen on tutkittu ilmiön yleisyyden takia viime aikoina paljon. Useiden tutkimuksien mukaan kuljettajan tarkkaamattomuus on merkittävä tekijä auto-onnettomuuksissa. Usein kuljettajan tarkkaamattomuus johtuu toissijaisesta tehtävästä – esimerkiksi viestin kirjoittamisesta tai osoitteen etsimisestä – ajon aikana. Aiemmissa tutkimuksissa on havaittu, että kuljettajilla saattaa olla yksilöllisiä laitteeseen suuntautuvien katseiden kestojen preferenssejä toissijaisia tehtäviä tehdessä. Nykyiset usein käytetyt elektronisten laitteiden aiheuttamaa tarkkaamattomuutta mittaavat testausmenetelmä…