Exploring two interaction mechanisms for in-vehicle touch screens: Peripheral Vision and Muscle Memory

Eren, Ayse; Burnett, Gary; Harvey, Catherine; Large, David R

Abstract

There is a need to understand how in-vehicle touchscreens can be designed to minimise “eyes off road” time. We investigated the relative effects of two mechanisms shown to be relevant to visual behaviour when driving, but previously not considered together in the context of in-vehicle touchscreen use: peripheral vision (PV) and muscle memory (MM), i.e. motor learning. This study was designed to isolate and observe the effects of PV and MM on the time to press different sized buttons (small 6x6cm, medium 10x10cm, large 14x14cm) on an in-vehicle touchscreen. Twenty-five participants were seated in a driving simulator and were presented with a single, white, square button on the touchscreen on 24 successive occasions. For MM conditions, participants wore a pair of glasses that blocked their peripheral vision and for PV conditions they were asked to focus on the vehicle in front. Results show that task time was significantly higher during MM tasks at the beginning of each condition compared to task time for PV tasks. NASA TLX results showed that perceived workload was significantly higher during MM in comparison with PV conditions. Results suggest that for interfaces that utilise peripheral visual processing the learning effect is not evident and operation times are constant over time. This suggests that in-vehicle touch screens can be designed to utilise peripheral vision for making simple button selections.

Citation

Eren, A., Burnett, G., Harvey, C., & Large, D. R. (2017, March). Exploring two interaction mechanisms for in-vehicle touch screens: Peripheral Vision and Muscle Memory. Paper presented at International Conference on Driver Distraction and Inattention (DDI2017), Paris, France

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: International Conference on Driver Distraction and Inattention (DDI2017)
• Start Date: Mar 20, 2017
• End Date: Mar 22, 2017
• Acceptance Date: Mar 20, 2017
• Publication Date: Mar 20, 2017
• Deposit Date: May 9, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: May 22, 2019
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2035028
• Related Public URLs: https://ddi2017.sciencesconf.org/
• Contract Date: May 9, 2019