This paper reports a UK study to investigate the psychological issues of the use of adaptive cruise control (ACC) when driving: locus of control, the extent to which removal of control affects performance of the vehicle; trust in the system; situational awareness about the operational status of the system; mental representation of the system; mental and physical workload; feedback; and driver stress. Participants answered questionnaires and completed driving simulator runs with and without ACC. Results showed that well-being and mental workload had a significant association with situational awareness; well-being had a positive relationship and mental workload a negative one. It seems that situational awareness, mental workload, driver stress, locus of control and trust play central roles in the psychological model of ACC operation, overshadowing mental models, which was not previously understood. For the covering abstract see ITRD E116025.
Abstract