Effect of Disengaging and Guiding Visual attention on Cognition of Drivers

Abstract

Information facilities such as signboards have been set up on highways to alert drivers to potential hazards. However, the visual attention of drivers tends to be strongly focused on the direction of travel, and not enough visual attention is captured by information-providing facilities, resulting in the delay in detection of such facilities. To relieve the delay in detection, it is effective to release the captured visual attention by visual stimuli and to direct visual attention to the target by visual cues. In the present study, the hypothesis that visual stimuli and visual cues can alleviate the delay in target detection was formulated and tested in an indoor experiment using a driving simulator, with a dual task in which the main task was highway driving and the secondary task was a visual search task. The results of the experiment showed that the visual stimuli disengaged visual attention and the visual cues induced visual attention, and supported the hypothesis.