Assessing the visual and cognitive demands of in-vehicle information systems

New automobiles provide a variety of features that allow motorists to perform a plethora of secondary tasks unrelated to the primary task of driving. Despite their ubiquity, surprisingly little is known about how these complex multimodal in-vehicle information systems (IVIS) interactions impact a driver’s workload. The current research sought to address three interrelated questions concerning this knowledge gap: (1) Are some task types more impairing than others? (2) Are some modes of interaction more distracting than others? (3) Are IVIS interactions easier to perform in some vehicles than others? Depending on the availability of the IVIS features in each vehicle, our testing involved an assessment of up to four task types (audio entertainment, calling and dialing, text messaging, and navigation) and up to three modes of interaction (e.g., center stack, auditory vocal, and the center console). The data collected from each participant provided a measure of cognitive demand, a measure of visual/manual demand, a subjective workload measure, and a measure of the time it took to complete the different tasks. The research provides empirical evidence that the workload experienced by drivers systematically varied as a function of the different tasks, modes of interaction, and vehicles that we evaluated. This objective assessment suggests that many of these IVIS features are too distracting to be enabled while the vehicle is in motion. Greater consideration should be given to what interactions should be available to the driver when the vehicle is in motion rather than to what IVIS features and functions could be available to motorists.