Light my way

Abstract

In demanding driving situations, the front-seat passenger can become a supporter of the driver by, e.g., monitoring the scene or providing hints about upcoming hazards or turning points. A fast and efficient communication of such spatial information can help the driver to react properly, with more foresight. As shown in previous research, this spatial referencing can be facilitated by providing the driver a visualization of the front-seat passenger's gaze. In this paper, we focus on the question how the gaze should be visualized for the driver, taking into account the feasibility of implementation in a real car. We present the results from a driving simulator study, where we compared an LED visualization (glowing LEDs on an LED stripe mounted at the bottom of the windshield, indicating the horizontal position of the gaze) with a visualization of the gaze as a dot in the simulated environment. Our results show that LED visualization comes with benefits with regard to driver distraction but also bears disadvantages with regard to accuracy and control for the front-seat passenger.