The objectives of the study were 1) to investigate a driver's ability to acquire information displayed peripherally inside the car without moving their eyes from the traffic scene and 2) to illustrate the influence of various factors on the speed and accuracy by which the information can be acquired by the drivers peripheral vision; Effects of type of information, information position, speed level and traffic condition were studied. Thirty-two experienced drivers aged between 23 and 49 participated in the study which was conducted in the VTI driving simulator. The results clearly show that a driver is able to acquire visual information from inside the car via the peripheral vision. Only 5 per cent of the presented information was acquired by fixating it. However, the acquisition time and the accuracy of interpretation were influenced by type of information carrier, position of the information and cognitive load. The information acquisition was satisfactory when the information was moving, i.e. shown as stationary characters. The response times were longer for stationary than for moving information and on average 1.7 and 1.5 sec, respectively. In addition 27 per cent of the stationary information was incorrectly identified compared to only 2 per cent of the moving information. The generally poorer capability to acquire stationary information was also sensitive to display position and variations in visual and cognitive demand, factors that did not influence the acquisition of moving information. The obtained results add knowledge for optimal design of in-car information systems taking into account basic human abilities to acquire visual information. (Author/publisher)
Abstract