Coming back into the loop: Drivers’ perceptual-motor performance in critical events after automated driving

Louw, Tyron; Markkula, Gustav; Boer, Erwin R.; Madigan, Ruth; Carsten, Oliver; Merat, Natasha · 2017 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.1016/j.aap.2017.08.011

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Summary

This study investigates drivers’ perceptual-motor performance when resuming control from an automated driving system, specifically addressing the "out-of-the-loop" (OoTL) performance problem. The research aims to determine how varying levels of visual information availability during automation affect the timing and quality of drivers' responses to critical traffic events. The authors challenge the prevailing reliance on "take-over time" as a primary safety metric, proposing instead that the kinematic criticality of the situation dictates driver response timing. The experiment utilized a driving simulator with 75 participants divided into five groups based on a between-participant design. Each group experienced different OoTL manipulations that progressively restricted visual access to the road environment and automation status, ranging from full visibility ("No Fog") to complete visual occlusion combined with a secondary task ("Heavy Fog + Task"). Participants engaged in automated driving before encountering six discrete car-following events, two of which were critical scenarios requiring collision avoidance. Instead of a standard take-over request, drivers received an "uncertainty alert," requiring them to monitor the scene and decide whether to intervene. The study measured "take-over time" (disengagement of automation) and "action time" (initiation of braking or steering), as well as the rate of control input relative to Inverse Time To Collision (invTTC), a measure of situation criticality. Results indicated that reduced visual information during automation significantly increased take-over times, with drivers in the most restricted conditions taking longer to disengage the system. However, this delay did not affect the timing of the actual collision avoidance maneuver; action times remained statistically similar across all groups. Drivers initiated avoidance maneuvers when the situation criticality exceeded an invTTC value of approximately 0.3 s⁻¹, regardless of their prior OoTL state. Furthermore, drivers scaled the intensity of their braking or steering responses to the kinematic urgency of the event, demonstrating consistent perceptual-motor scaling similar to manual driving. Crucially, while long take-over times did not predict collision outcomes, kinematically late initiation of avoidance maneuvers did. The findings suggest that take-over time and the timing/quality of avoidance responses are largely independent processes. The study concludes that system design should prioritize facilitating kinematically early avoidance initiation rather than minimizing take-over times. Since drivers naturally anchor their responses to the visual looming of threats, ensuring drivers can perceive these kinematic cues is more critical for safety than forcing rapid physical re-engagement with vehicle controls.

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Topics

Ranked by relevance to this paper. Hover a topic for its definition.

• takeover transitions
• automation
• automation surprise
• manual
• situational awareness
• temporal
• perception action locomotion

Information type

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• Empirical Findings: behavioral performance data
• Methodological Resource: measurement protocol
• Theoretical Contribution: conceptual framework