Presentation
Countering Driver Vigilance Decrement for Partially Automated Vehicles
SessionST7 - Vigilance and Driving
Event Type
Lecture
Perception and Performance
System Development
TimeThursday, October 13th1:30pm - 2:00pm EDT
LocationL402/L403
DescriptionPartial driving automation requires a human driver to observe the roadway, but humans are notoriously bad at monitoring tasks over long periods of time. Vigilance decrement refers to decreases in hazard detection and increases in response times over time in monitoring tasks, including the task of driving a partially automated vehicle. We investigated countermeasures to vigilance decrement during a simulated partially automated driving task with the goal of improving driving performance. We found that, compared to a driving-related secondary task and the control condition with no secondary task, a non-driving related secondary task improved hazard detection rates and showed trends of improving response times, stopping disengagement, and decreasing workload. Our findings suggest that infrequent and intermittent breaks using a non-driving related task may help alleviate vigilance decrement in the partially automated driving systems.