A Comparative Study on the Detectability between Haptic and Auditory Signals under Driving and Non-driving Task Conditions

초록

Objective: The objective of this study is to compare the driver's response rate and time between auditory and haptic signals under different task conditions. It is for checking whether haptic signals can be used as a primary and independent channel of the multimodal in-vehicle warning system. Background: As recent automobiles are evolving into intelligent information systems the amount of information that drivers need to process increase correspondingly. Too much information presented simultaneously on visual displays may distract drivers' attention and it may cause serious traffic accidents. It is hypothesized that multimodal in-vehicle information systems can be a possible solution for reducing the driver's cognitive overload. Method: Experiments were conducted to gather response rate and time for given warning signals delivered in auditory and haptic modalities, using a computerized interactive driving simulator. The subjects were tested under two different task conditions: driving and non-driving. Response rate and time for the haptic signals were compared with those for the auditory signals. Conclusion: The study shows that there is no significant difference in response rate between the two modalities. For response time, auditory signals draw faster responses compared to the haptic signals in 70 msec on average. Application: The result from this study supports that haptic signals can be used as substitute warnings under the condition that other channels are busy and signals can be initiated a bit earlier than the auditory signals.

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