Drivers struggle to multitask when using car touch screens
- Researchers found that drivers who multitasked while using car touch screens suffered from decreased driving accuracy and speed, as well as increased lane drifting.
- The study, which used a vehicle simulator and tracked participants’ gaze, finger movements, and cognitive load, revealed that the visual component of using touch screens affected driving performance.
- When drivers added a memory task to their multitasking, their driving accuracy decreased by 58% and speed decreased by another 17%, while glance duration at the touchscreen decreased by 26.3%.
- The researchers suggest that future in-car touch screen systems could use sensors like eye tracking or touch sensors on the steering wheel to monitor drivers’ attention and cognitive load, adjusting the interface to make important controls more prominent and safer to access.
- The study’s findings have implications for auto manufacturers designing safer and more responsive touch screens and in-car interfaces, with the goal of reducing distractions and improving driving safety.
New research explores how drivers balance driving and using touch screens while distracted.
Once the domain of buttons and knobs, car dashboards are increasingly home to large touch screens. While that makes following a mapping app easier, it also means drivers can’t feel their way to a control; they have to look. But how does that visual component affect driving?
In the new study, participants drove in a vehicle simulator, interacted with a touch screen and completed memory tests that mimic the mental effort demanded by traffic conditions and other distractions.
The team found that when people multitasked, their driving and touch screen use both suffered. The car drifted more in the lane while people used touch screens, and their speed and accuracy with the screen declined when driving. The effects increased further when they added the memory task.
These results could help auto manufacturers design safer, more responsive touch screens and in-car interfaces.
The team presented its research at the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology in Busan, Korea.
“We all know it’s dangerous to use your phone while driving,” says co-senior author James Fogarty, a University of Washington professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. “But what about the car’s touch screen? We wanted to understand that interaction so we can design interfaces specifically for drivers.”
As the study’s 16 participants drove the simulator, sensors tracked their gaze, finger movements, pupil diameter and electrodermal activity. The last two are common ways to measure mental effort, or “cognitive load.” For instance, pupils tend to grow when people are concentrating.
While driving, participants had to touch specific targets on a 12-inch touch screen, similar to how they would interact with apps and widgets. They did this while completing three levels of an “N-back task,” a memory test in which the participants hear a series of numbers, 2.5 seconds apart, and have to repeat specific digits.
The participants’ performance changed significantly under different conditions:
- When interacting with the touch screen, participants drifted side to side in their lane 42% more often. Increasing cognitive load had no effect on the results.
- Touch screen accuracy and speed decreased 58% when driving, then another 17% under high cognitive load.
- Each glance at the touchscreen was 26.3% shorter under high cognitive load.
- A “hand-before-eye” phenomenon, in which drivers’ reached for a control before looking at it, increased from 63% to 71% as memory tasks were introduced.
The team also found that increasing the size of the target areas participants were trying to touch did not improve their performance.
“If people struggle with accuracy on a screen, usually you want to make bigger buttons,” says Xiyuan Alan Shen, a doctoral student in the Allen School. “But in this case, since people move their hand to the screen before touching, the thing that takes time is the visual search.”
Based on these findings, the researchers suggest future in-car touch screen systems might use simple sensors in the car—eye tracking, or touch sensors on the steering wheel—to monitor drivers’ attention and cognitive load. Based on these readings, the car’s system might adjust the touch screen’s interface to make important controls more prominent and safer to access.
“Touch screens are widespread today in automobile dashboards, so it is vital to understand how interacting with touch screens affects drivers and driving,” says co-senior author Jacob O. Wobbrock, a professor in the Information School. “Our research is some of the first that scientifically examines this issue, suggesting ways for making these interfaces safer and more effective.”
Additional coauthors are from the University of Washington and Toyota Research Institute (TRI).
This research was funded in part by TRI.
Source: University of Washington
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