To achieve the goals for Advanced Traveler Information Systems (ATIS), significant information will necessarily be provided to the driver. A primary ATIS design issue is the display modality (i.e. visual, auditory, or the combination) selected for providing this information. There were two objectives for this research. First, to what degree, and under which circumstances, are multi-modality displays beneficial? Second, for circumstances where multi-modality are not beneficial, which single display modality results in best performance? A simulator experiment was conducted to determine the effects of driver age, display modality, driving load, and information complexity on driving performance, navigation performance, driver workload, and driver performance. Four primary findings from the study were that: - For emergency response displays, the multi-modality and the auditory displays resulted in faster reaction times than the visual display for detecting warning information, while information presented on the multi-modality display resulted in fewer errors than the auditory display. - For navigation tasks, the multi-modality display resulted in the best performance for both total correct turns and number of navigation-related errors. - For driving performance, the multi-modality display generally resulted in better performance for both speed maintenance and safe driving behavior. - For subjective workload and preference ratings, the multi-modality display and the auditory display received more preferable ratings than did the visual display. (Author/publisher)
Abstract