Measuring Visual Distraction in Driving: The Potential of Head Movement Analysis

Because eye movement measurement is often unstable, this paper investigated whether head movement recording could be an alternative to eye movement analysis for measuring distraction through visual secondary tasks in driving. During a 1 hour drive in the driving simulator, N=16 participants conducted a self paced menu system task which was designed according to commercial in-vehicle information systems. Influence of visual distraction is analyzed and compared for parameters of eye and of head movement. Parameters like percent road center for head and eye movement and proportion of head movement are calculated. Results show that head movement analysis can differentiate nearly as well between distracted and attentive driving as parameters based on eye movement recording in this task context. It is concluded that head movement analysis seems to be a promising alternative for assessing drivers’ distraction.

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