Trial-by-trial feedback fails to improve the consideration of acceleration in visual time-to-collision estimation

Wessels, Marlene; Hecht, Heiko; Huisman, Thirsa; Oberfeld, Daniel · 2023 · Crossref

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0288206

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Summary

This study investigates whether the altered acoustic signature of electric vehicles (EVs) compared to internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles leads to risky time-to-contact (TTC) estimates and road-crossing decisions by pedestrians, specifically during vehicle acceleration. The research was motivated by the potential safety risk that EVs produce less salient noise than ICE vehicles even under high acceleration, which may impair pedestrians' ability to detect acceleration and accurately estimate arrival times. The researchers developed a state-of-the-art audiovisual virtual reality simulation system using acoustic recordings from real vehicles to ensure physical plausibility. Three vehicle types were compared: an ICE vehicle, an EV without an acoustic vehicle alerting system (AVAS), and an EV with an AVAS compliant with UNECE Regulation No. 138. The study comprised three experiments with participants possessing normal hearing and vision. Experiment 1 required participants to estimate the TTC of approaching vehicles. Experiment 2 assessed crossing decisions by measuring the TTC at which participants were indifferent to initiating a crossing. Experiment 3 measured the accuracy of detecting positive acceleration under visual-only versus audiovisual conditions. The results demonstrated that vehicle type had no substantial effect on TTC estimates for constant-speed approaches. However, during acceleration, participants significantly overestimated the TTC for EVs, failing to adequately account for the increasing speed. This overestimation was markedly less pronounced for ICE vehicles, indicating that ICE acoustic cues improve TTC estimation during acceleration. Consequently, in Experiment 2, participants accepted significantly shorter TTCs for EVs than for ICE vehicles during acceleration, leading to a collision probability more than 10% higher for EVs without AVAS. While the AVAS improved TTC estimates and reduced the collision risk difference, the risk for EVs with AVAS remained significantly higher than for ICE vehicles. Experiment 3 confirmed that vehicle sounds are central to detecting acceleration, with the detection advantage for EVs without AVAS being significantly lower than for ICE vehicles. The study concludes that auditory information is critical for pedestrians in road-crossing situations, even when vehicles are fully visible. The altered acoustic signature of EVs during acceleration represents a potential risk factor, as pedestrians struggle to detect acceleration and subsequently overestimate safe crossing times. These findings imply that future technical developments, particularly the design of acoustic warning systems, must address road-crossing decisions and acceleration detection, not just vehicle detection. Further research is recommended to evaluate a wider range of AVAS variants and the potential for improving pedestrian safety through training or experience.

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• time to collision looming

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• Applied Guidance: countermeasure evaluation