Exploring the factors affecting myopic drivers’ driving skills and risk perception in nighttime driving

The aim of this study was to investigate how various factors affect myopic drivers’ nighttime driving skills and nighttime risk perception. A total of 400 myopic drivers and 100 non-myopic drivers participated in the study. The participants were asked to complete a questionnaire that included demographic information, a quality of life scale, a nighttime driving skills scale, and a nighttime risk perception scale. To explore the correlations and differences among demographic information, quality of life, myopic drivers’ nighttime driving skills and nighttime risk perceptions, bivariate correlation analysis and analyses of covariance were conducted on data from 364 valid myopic drivers’ questionnaires and 81 valid non-myopic drivers’ questionnaires. Moreover, a structural equation model was built to explore the predictors of myopic drivers’ driving skills and risk perception at night and to measure the relationships among various factors. The results indicate that non-myopic drivers reported a lower level of nighttime risk perception than myopic drivers, whereas their nighttime driving skill was significantly higher than that of myopic drivers. Female myopic drivers reported significantly higher risk perception and lower driving ability than males. Additionally, drivers with at least a bachelor degree had higher nighttime risk perception than drivers without a college degree. As the degree of myopia increased, nighttime driving ability decreased, and nighttime risk perception improved. Myopic drivers’ quality of life was the strongest predictor of nighttime driving skills and nighttime risk perception. These findings suggest that further studies of myopic drivers’ driving behaviors should not only consider their visual characteristics, but also explore the relationship between their quality of life and driving behaviors, especially for highly myopic drivers.

     

Do situational or cognitive factors contribute more to risky driving? A simulated driving study

Cognition, Technology & Work - Previous research has identified cognitive and situational factors as causes of risky driving; however, little is known about what roles cognitive and situational...     

Driving comfort,enjoyment and acceptance of automated driving – effects of drivers’ age and driving style familiarity

Automated driving has the potential to improve the safety and efficiency of future traffic and to extend elderly peoples’ driving life, provided it is perceived as comfortable and joyful and is accepted by drivers. Driving comfort could be enhanced by familiar automated driving styles based on drivers’ manual driving styles. In a two-stage driving simulator study, effects of driving automation and driving style familiarity on driving comfort, enjoyment and system acceptance were examined. Twenty younger and 20 older drivers performed a manual and four automated drives of different driving style familiarity. Acceptance, comfort and enjoyment were assessed after driving with standardised questionnaires, discomfort during driving via handset control. Automation increased both age groups’ comfort, but decreased younger drivers’ enjoyment. Younger drivers showed higher comfort, enjoyment and acceptance with familiar automated driving styles, whereas older drivers preferred unfamiliar, automated driving styles tending to be faster than their age-affected manual driving styles.

Practitioner Summary: Automated driving needs to be comfortable and enjoyable to be accepted by drivers, which could be enhanced by driving style individualisation. This approach was evaluated in a two-stage driving simulator study for different age groups. Younger drivers preferred familiar driving styles, whereas older drivers preferred driving styles unaffected by age.     

Interactions between human–human multi-threaded dialogues and driving

In-car devices with speech user interfaces are proliferating. How can we build these interfaces such that they allow human–computer interactions with multiple devices to overlap in time, but without interfering with the driving task? We suggest that interface design can be inspired by the way people deal with this problem in human–human dialogues and propose discovering human dialogue behaviors of interest through experiments. In this paper, we discuss how to design an appropriate human–human dialogue scenario for such experiments. We also report on one human–human experiment, in terms of the dialogue behaviors found, and impact on the verbal tasks and on driving. We also offer design considerations based on the results of the study.     

Cubic centimeter robot based on inertial stick–slip driving

In order to achieve the nano-operation in a limited space, a precision motion platform with a cubic centimeter volume based on the principle of inertial stick–slip driving is proposed in this paper. The mechanical structure and the operating principle are discussed. Kinematic models are used to analyze the performance of the prototype. To investigate the working performance of the prototype, a series of experiments are carried out. Experimental results show that the displacement outputs is related to the parameters of the electrical signal. The maximum moving speed of the platform reaches 13.1 mm/s when the driving frequency is 3.1 kHz. The maximum single step displacement reaches 4.8 μm. Through proper driving voltage and frequency, the proposed prototype can produce a satisfactory velocity.

     

Does computing anger have social elements? A comparison with driving anger

Computer-related anger is compared with driving-related anger in the context of considering whether the concept of ethopoeia can help in explaining computer-related anger and to test whether appraisal theory applies to human–computer interactions to the same extent as it does to interactions between humans. Using retrospective self-report questionnaires, a pool of 140 UK students and members of the public provided data on recent incidents in which they experienced anger while using a computer and while driving. The motivational relevance of incidents and need to communicate anger to computers are shown to be independently predictive of computer anger intensity. Also, as a group, all three appraisal components (motivational relevance, motivational incongruence and other-accountability) that are taken to be central in the generation of anger in the Smith and Lazarus variant of appraisal theory are shown to be more predictive of anger intensity in computing situations than in driving situations. Findings such as computers and other drivers being held equally accountable for anger-inducing incidents, and computer-accountability and other-driver-accountability being equally correlated with anger intensity across the two situations are argued to be consistent with the idea that ethopoeia may play a role in many instances of computer-related anger.     

How do environmental characteristics at intersections change in their relevance for drivers before entering an intersection: analysis of drivers’ gaze and driving behavior in a driving simulator study

Accident studies in Germany found that in about 90 % of intersection accidents, failure to acquire the relevant information of the driving situation was the main reason for drivers’ errors (Vollrath et al. in Ableitung von Anforderungen an Fahrerassistenzsysteme aus Sicht der Verkehrssicherheit. Wirtschaftsverlag NW, Bremerhaven, 2006). Studies of bicycle–car accidents assume that improper attention allocation strategies and unjustified expectations by drivers are important for this kind of error (Räsänen and Summala in Accid Anal Prev 30:657–666, 1998). Aim of the study was to examine the psychological processes of drivers’ attention allocation and driving behavior in different intersection situations varied by two environmental characteristics. A give way T-intersection was varied by (1) low and high traffic density of oncoming cars from the left and (2) number of task-relevant information areas (in addition to the oncoming cars from the left with or without pedestrians on the right). It was examined how these environmental characteristics change in their relevance for drivers while entering the intersections. The analysis was conducted in three intersection epochs (Approaching, Waiting, Accelerating). A total of 40 subjects (26 male, 14 female), ranged in age from 19 to 55 years (M = 31.0 years), participated in the study. The results showed that drivers’ attention allocation (e.g., mean gaze duration) and driving behavior (e.g., waiting time) systematically depends on these environmental characteristics which require different actions of the driver and change in their relevance when entering an intersection. The results support the idea of attention allocation strategies by drivers which are specific for certain driving situations. These findings can support approaches of driver modeling at intersections.     

Driver–vehicle cooperation: a hierarchical cooperative control architecture for automated driving systems

The concept of automated driving changes the way humans interact with their cars. However, how humans should interact with automated driving systems remains an open question. Cooperation between a driver and an automated driving system—they exert control jointly to facilitate a common driving task for each other—is expected to be a promising interaction paradigm that can address human factors issues caused by driving automation. Nevertheless, the complex nature of automated driving functions makes it very challenging to apply the state-of-the-art frameworks of driver–vehicle cooperation to automated driving systems. To meet this challenge, we propose a hierarchical cooperative control architecture which is derived from the existing architectures of automated driving systems. Throughout this architecture, we discuss how to adapt system functions to realize different forms of cooperation in the framework of driver–vehicle cooperation. We also provide a case study to illustrate the use of this architecture in the design of a cooperative control system for automated driving. By examining the concepts behind this architecture, we highlight that the correspondence between several concepts of planning and control originated from the fields of robotics and automation and the ergonomic frameworks of human cognition and control offers a new opportunity for designing driver–vehicle cooperation.

     

Is the addition of an assisted driving Hamiltonian always useful for adiabatic evolution?

It has been known that when an assisted driving item is added to the main system Hamiltonian, the efficiency of the resultant adiabatic evolution can be significantly improved. In some special cases, it can be seen that only through adding an assisted driving Hamiltonian can the resulting adiabatic evolution be made not to fail. Thus the additional driving Hamiltonian plays an important role in adiabatic computing. In this paper, we show that if the driving Hamiltonian is chosen inappropriately, the adiabatic computation may still fail. More importantly, we find that the adiabatic computation can only succeed if the assisted driving Hamiltonian has a relatively fixed form. This may help us understand why in the related literature all of the driving Hamiltonians used share the same form.     

A large thrust trans-scale precision positioning stage based on the inertial stick–slip driving

In this paper, a large thrust trans-scale precision positioning stage based on the inertial stick–slip driving is proposed, which can output long range motion. The stage consists of a piezoelectric actuator, a cross roller guide, a pair of cantilever beams, the flexure hinge system and the gather system of grating ruler, and the volume is 30 mm (L) × 17 mm (W) × 17.5 mm (H). The structure and the driving principle are introduced in detail. To investigate the working performance, a prototype is fabricated and a series of experiments is carried out. Experimental results demonstrate that the displacement outputs under various driving voltages, various driving frequencies and various step response time show good linear relationships with the time. The maximum thrust and the maximum load capacity are 6.1 N and 2500 g. The displacement and the driving resolution can reach 20 mm and 5 nm. The velocity can reach 12 mm/s when the driving frequency is 2.5 kHz. The experimental results also confirm that the designed stage can achieve various speeds by changing the driving voltage and driving frequency.

     

A comparative study of two wayfinding aids for simulated driving tasks – single-scale and dual-scale GPS aids

Global Positioning System (GPS) is currently the most frequently used wayfinding aid for driving. Yet, GPS is designed to act as a driving guide rather than to help users gain spatial knowledge. Accordingly, GPS might be less usable in situations where such knowledge is required or highly desirable. In this study, we experimentally study the influence of GPS display scales (single-scale vs. dual-scale) using simulated driving tasks in a virtual environment. The single-scale GPS is similar to the regular GPS view. The dual-scale GPS aid is a dual-scale navigation tool that provides two levels of detail, including both detailed and contextual information. The results demonstrate that the dual-scale GPS was more efficient in leading the participants to the destination during the simulated driving and was more useful for the participants to establish spatial awareness and a cognitive map; the dual-scale GPS participants also reported higher subjective evaluations. The proposed dual-scale GPS design and experimental results show some indications for designing new wayfinding aids aimed at increasing wayfinding performance while simultaneously helping users construct a cognitive map.     

Is it really good to talk? Testing the impact of providing concurrent verbal protocols on driving performance

Abstract

Questions have been raised regarding the impact that providing concurrent verbal protocols has on task performance in various settings; however, there has been little empirical testing of this in road transport. The aim of this study was to examine the impact of providing concurrent verbal protocols on driving performance. Participants drove an instrumented vehicle around a set route, twice whilst providing a concurrent verbal protocol, and twice without. A comparison revealed no differences in behaviour related to speed, braking and steering wheel angle when driving mid-block, but a significant difference in aspects of braking and acceleration at roundabouts. When not providing a verbal protocol, participants were found to brake harder on approach to a roundabout and accelerate more heavily coming out of roundabouts. It is concluded that providing verbal protocols may have a positive effect on braking and accelerating. Practical implications related to driver training and future research are discussed.

Practitioner Summary: Verbal protocol analysis is used by ergonomists to understand aspects of cognition and decision-making during complex tasks such as driving and control room operation. This study examines the impact that it has on driving performance, providing evidence to support its continued use in ergonomics applications.     

What happens next? Predicting other road users' behaviour as a function of driving experience and processing time

Hazard perception is one of the most important facets of driving and if the appropriate diagnostic tool is used it can discriminate between novice and experienced drivers. In this study video clips of actual driving scenarios were shown to novice and experienced drivers. The clips were stopped just prior to hazard onset and either the screen went black or the final still image stayed on the screen. Participants were then asked five questions about what happened next. This variant of the hazard perception test allowed the influence of processing time to be included and the level of situation awareness to be measured. Experienced drivers significantly anticipated more correct hazardous outcomes than novice drivers when the screen went black. Novice drivers benefited from the extra processing time afforded by the image remaining on the screen and significantly anticipated more hazards when the image remained on the screen than when it went black. The findings indicate that when processing time is manipulated, hazard perception accuracy reveals experiential differences. These differences are discussed with reference to hazard perception and situation awareness. This research informs the current controversy over whether hazard perception is a good diagnostic tool for driving performance. It identifies potential confounds in previous work and demonstrates that experiential differences can be found if the appropriate tests are used. Further, it suggests improvements for new hazard perception tests.     

What determines drivers’ speed? A replication of three behavioural adaptation experiments in a single driving simulator study

We conceptually replicated three highly cited experiments on speed adaptation, by measuring drivers’ experienced risk (galvanic skin response; GSR), experienced task difficulty (self-reported task effort; SRTE) and safety margins (time-to-line-crossing; TLC) in a single experiment. The three measures were compared using a nonparametric index that captures the criteria of constancy during self-paced driving and sensitivity during forced-paced driving. In a driving simulator, 24 participants completed two forced-paced and one self-paced run. Each run held four different lane width conditions. Results showed that participants drove faster on wider lanes, thus confirming the expected speed adaptation. None of the three measures offered persuasive evidence for speed adaptation because they failed either the sensitivity criterion (GSR) or the constancy criterion (TLC, SRTE). An additional measure, steering reversal rate, outperformed the other three measures regarding sensitivity and constancy, prompting a further evaluation of the role of control activity in speed adaptation.

Practitioner Summary: Results from a driving simulator experiment suggest that it is not experienced risk, experienced effort or safety margins that govern drivers’ choice of speed. Rather, our findings suggest that steering reversal rate has an explanatory role in speed adaptation.     

Drivers' and non-drivers' performance in a change detection task with static driving scenes: is there a benefit of experience?

The ‘looked-but-failed-to-see’ phenomenon is crucial to driving safety. Previous research utilising change detection tasks related to driving has reported inconsistent effects of driver experience on the ability to detect changes in static driving scenes. Reviewing these conflicting results, we suggest that drivers' increased ability to detect changes will only appear when the task requires a pattern of visual attention distribution typical of actual driving. By adding a distant fixation point on the road image, we developed a modified change blindness paradigm and measured detection performance of drivers and non-drivers. Drivers performed better than non-drivers only in scenes with a fixation point. Furthermore, experience effect interacted with the location of the change and the relevance of the change to driving. These results suggest that learning associated with driving experience reflects increased skill in the efficient distribution of visual attention across both the central focus area and peripheral objects.     

Achieving high sensing in 0.5 nA for the driving pixel currents in AMOLEDs with settling time of 7 µs by a new external current sensing circuit

A new external current sensing circuit with baseline compensation for the active matrix organic light emitting diode (AMOLED) display is developed herein to achieve the sensing precision of 0.5 nA in pixel with 7 µs of settling time. Current sensing circuit incorporates a new push–pull transient current feedforward whereas the current analog to digital converter (CADC) based digital baseline current compensation incorporates an 11-bit current digital-to-analog converter, a current comparator and a digital control circuit with an 11-bit successive approximation register. The proposed integrated mixed signal IC drives a 6T1C pixel-based AMOLED panel with one horizontal time of 7.7 µs at a scan frequency of 60 Hz. The design readout chip can simultaneously sense and compensate TFT baseline current variation. The readout circuit and the baseline compensation circuit are implemented in the integrated chip with chip area of 125 μm × 46 μm and fabricated via TSMC T18 process. With the standard 3.3 V supply, experimental result shows that the overall power consumption of the chip is 988 µW watt. The minimum LSB current for the CADC is 10 nA and the maximum achievable sampling rate is 500 KS/s. The measured INL and DNL of CADC is 0.84 and 0.98 respectively. Despite of heavy data line parasitic capacitances (2.6 KΩ/20 pF) of the AMOLED display, experimental results show that the proposed circuit can sense 0.5 nA current within 7 µs of settling time. The sensing precision of 0.5 nA within 7 µs are the best among all reported literature to date whereas the current sense range (0.5–500 nA), system sampling rate (142 KS/s), INL (0.84) and DNL (0.98) of the CADC is approximately comparable among all reported.

     

Fast generation of <Emphasis Type="Italic">N</Emphasis>-atom Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger state in separate coupled cavities via transitionless quantum driving

By jointly using quantum Zeno dynamics and the approach of “transitionless quantum driving (TQD)” proposed by Berry to construct shortcuts to adiabatic passage, we propose an efficient scheme to fast generate multiatom Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger (GHZ) state in separate cavities connected by optical fibers only by one-step manipulation. We first detail the generation of the three-atom GHZ state via TQD; then, we compare the proposed TQD scheme with the traditional ones with adiabatic passage. At last, the influence of various decoherence factors, such as spontaneous emission, cavity decay and fiber photon leakage, is discussed by numerical simulations. All of the results show that the present TQD scheme is fast and insensitive to atomic spontaneous emission and fiber photon leakage. Furthermore, the scheme can be directly generalized to realize N-atom GHZ state generation by the same principle in theory.