Citation

Schewe F, Vollrath M. Transp. Res. F Traffic Psychol. Behav. 2020; 72: 155-170.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.trf.2020.05.009

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper aims to demonstrate that ecological interface design reduces the use of cognitive resources. Making the boundaries of acceptable performance visually perceivable should elicit skill-based behavior, thus lowering the cognitive load. To illustrate the psychological mechanisms of ecological interface design and validate its influence on cognitive load, we compared a conventional speedometer to an ecological speedometer. Both interfaces were displayed on the head-up display of a static driving simulator and were tested in a rural highway scenario. In a 2 × 2 × 2 repeated-measure design, the human-machine interface was tested along with the informative intelligent speed assistance system (representing an existing alternative for speed control) and the additional workload induced by a 1-back task (representing cognitively demanding driving situations). To measure cognitive load, we used a tactile version of the detection response task and controlled for all confounding variables. The experiment was conducted with 28 male and 21 female drivers. Our hypotheses and the ecological interface design theory are supported by the finding that the ecological speedometer reduces the use of cognitive resources. Moreover, the specific application of the ecological speedometer enables better driving performance (i.e., longitudinal and lateral control) compared to a conventional speedometer.

Language: en

Keywords

Cognitive workload; Driver behavior; Ecological interface design; Intelligent vehicle systems