VISUAL ALLOCATION AND THE AVAILABILITY OF DRIVER INFORMATION

Driver information systems can be classified as those that provide information, recommend action or actively assume control of the vehicle in some manner. This paper considers the impact on visual behaviour of systems that provide information and recommend action. More specifically, it investigates changes in visual behaviour as a consequence of system and driver control of available information. It is hypothesised that driver control of information would impinge primarily on visual attention to the forward view. System control of information is predicted to intrude on visual scanning to the other regions of the visual scene in addition to the forward view. Visual scanning to these regions (e.g. driver mirror, left and right regions and instrument panel) is suggested to decrease because the in-vehicle display is in competition with roadway information. For the covering abstract, see IRRD 896859.