Assessing driver distraction from in-vehicle information system: an on-road study exploring the effects of input modalities and secondary task types
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-71226-4
archive: archived pipeline: cataloged verified
Get this paper ↗ (DOI — opens at the source; we link to it, we don't host it)
Summary
This study investigates the effects of input modalities and secondary task types on driver distraction among young adults using in-vehicle information systems (IVIS). Motivated by the high prevalence of IVIS use among young drivers and the associated safety risks, the research aims to understand how auditory-speech versus visual-manual inputs, and specific tasks (calls, music, navigation, radio), impact driving performance, secondary task performance, and visual glance behavior. The study addresses a gap in existing literature, which has largely relied on simulator studies, by conducting an on-road experiment to enhance external validity. The researchers employed a 2 × 4 within-subject repeated measures design involving 28 young drivers (aged 18–25) in Chengdu, China. Participants drove an instrumented Nissan SUV along a controlled urban route while performing baseline driving and eight IVIS tasks. The independent variables were input modality (auditory-speech vs. visual-manual) and secondary task type (calls, music, radio, navigation). Dependent variables included secondary task metrics (completion time, errors, System Usability Scale), driving performance metrics (average speed, lane departure warnings, NASA-Task Load Index), and visual glance behavior (average and total glance duration, number of glances, and glances exceeding 1.6 seconds). Data were collected using eye-tracking glasses, dashcams, and vehicle sensors, with statistical analysis performed via repeated-measures ANOVA. The results demonstrated significant main effects for both input modalities and secondary task types. Visual-manual input caused significantly more distraction than auditory-speech across most metrics, including increased task completion times, higher error rates, greater subjective workload, and more frequent and longer visual glances away from the road. Regarding task types, navigation and music were identified as the most distracting activities, followed by calls, with radio being the least distracting. These effects were observed across secondary task performance, driving performance, and visual behavior, although average speed and average glance duration did not show significant variations by task type. The distracting effect of input modalities remained relatively stable and was generally not moderated by the specific secondary task type, with the exception of radio tasks. The findings highlight that auditory-speech interfaces are superior to visual-manual interfaces for minimizing driver distraction, particularly for complex tasks like navigation and music control. The study underscores the heightened vulnerability of young drivers to IVIS-related distractions in real-world driving conditions. These results provide empirical evidence for designing driver-friendly human-machine interfaces that prioritize auditory-speech inputs to reduce cognitive and visual demands, thereby enhancing road safety and preventing IVIS-related accidents.
Provenance
The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed.
| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | OpenAlex-citations | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-17 |
| archive | success | unpaywall | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-25 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-25 |
| clean | success | clean | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-18 |
| chunk | success | chunk | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-18 |
| embed | success | embed | Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-8B | — | 1 | 2026-06-18 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-17 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 1 | 2026-06-25 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 6 | 2026-06-18 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-25; verification: verified.
Topics
Ranked by relevance to this paper. Hover a topic for its definition.
Information type
What kind of knowledge this paper contributes, grouped by family — independent of topic (what it is about) and method (how it was studied).
- Applied Guidance: design guidelines
- Empirical Findings: behavioral performance data
- Theoretical Contribution: conceptual framework