Hello ecebloggers,
I’m very proud today because I’m writing about my first experiment. The experiment builds on two of our previous studies. In one of them Zeljko Medenica found that when speech recognition performance is poor, having to use a push-to-talk button results in worse driving performance than using ambient recognition (you can find the paper on his study here). In his thesis Oskar Palinko found that drivers divert their visual attention from the outside world when using the push-to-talk button. This happens because drivers often cast a glance away from the road in order to locate the push-to-talk button before operating it.
A simple solution to this latter problem may be training drivers not to look for the push-to-talk button. However, just like users of consumer electronics in general, drivers are not willing to be trained for long periods of time in order to use an in-car device. The goal of this study is to determine if simple training, such as verbal instructions issued before driving, would improve drivers’ visual attention directed at the road ahead.
The experiment setup is shown in the picture below.
The experiment involves our high fidelity driving simulator and eye tracker. I’m also using three cameras: one to record subjects’ head movements, one to record hand positions while driving, and one to record the eye tracker laptop screen. The eye tracker laptop shows the video captured by the two eye tracking cameras but there is no elegant way of saving this video.
I’ve started the experiments this week with Oskar’s help so I’ll be able to post about results very soon!
Have a good one,
Nemanja Memarovic