New method determines motorist response to auto-pilot warning signals

The research found that people’s attention levels and how engrossed they are in on-screen activities can be detected from their eye movements. The team’s findings are published in Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications.

The research suggests a new way to determine the readiness of drivers using auto-pilot mode to respond to real-world signals, such as takeover requests from the car.

Cars with a ‘driverless’ auto-pilot mode are available for commercial private use in some locations, including Germany and certain US states. When using the auto-pilot mode, drivers can take their hands off the wheel and participate in other activities, but may require the driver to take back control of the car when necessary.

The researchers tested whether it was possible to detect if a person was too engrossed in another task to respond swiftly to such a “takeover” signal.

To do this, the team tested 42 participants across two experiments using a procedure that mimicked a “takeover” scenario used in some advanced models of cars with an auto-pilot mode.