Validating two assessment strategies for visual and cognitive load in a simulated driving task
archive: archived pipeline: cataloged verified
Summary
Strayer, Cooper, Goethe, McCarty, Getty, & Biondi (2019, Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications) developed and validated standardized Cognitive Demand Ratio (CDR) and Visual Demand Ratio (VDR) metrics for IVIS interactions. N=120 drivers (54 female, age 21-36 yr, M=25), 24 per vehicle, drove a 25-mph residential route in production vehicles while interacting with audio entertainment, calling/dialing, text messaging, and navigation across center-stack, auditory-vocal, and console modes. A vibrotactile DRT indexed cognitive load and a windshield-projected color-fade DRT indexed visual load, anchored by an N-back referent (cognitive) and a Surrogate Reference Task (SuRT, visual) plus single-task baseline. Subjective NASA-TLX and task completion time supplemented the objective measures.
Key finding
The Cognitive Demand Ratio and Visual Demand Ratio (DRT performance scaled to N-back and SuRT referents) provide standardized, vehicle-comparable measures of IVIS workload; demand varies systematically by task type, mode of interaction, and vehicle, with many production IVIS features showing demand levels too high to enable while moving.
Methodology
on_road
Sample size: 120
Quality score: 5 / 5