Buzz Buzz: Haptic Cuing of Road Conditions in Autonomous Cars for Drivers Engaged in Secondary Tasks

Abstract

Can drivers' situation awareness during automated driving be maintained using haptic cues that provide information about road and traffic scenarios while the drivers are engaged in a secondary task? And can this be done without disengaging them from the secondary task? Multiple Resource Theory predicts that using different sensory channels can improve multiple-task performance. Using haptics to provide information avoids the audio-visual channels likely occupied by the secondary task. An experiment was conducted to assess whether drivers' situation awareness could be maintained using haptic cues. Drivers played Fruit Ninja as the secondary task while seated in a driving simulator with a Level 4 autonomous system driving. A mixed design was used for the experiment with the presence of haptic cues and the presentation time of situation awareness questions as the between-subjects conditions. Five road and traffic scenarios comprised the within-subjects part of the design. Subjects who received haptic cues had a higher number of correct responses to the situation awareness questions and looked up at the simulator screen fewer times than those who were not provided cues. Subjects did not find the cues to be disruptive and gave good satisfaction scores to the haptic device. Additionally, subjects across all conditions seemed to have performed equally well in playing Fruit Ninja. It appears that haptic cuing can maintain drivers' situation awareness during automated driving while drivers are engaged in a secondary task. Practical implications of these findings for implementing haptic cues in autonomous vehicles are also discussed.