Enhanced auditory menu cues improve dual task performance and are preferred with in-vehicle technologies

Abstract

Auditory display research for driving has mainly focused on collision warning signals, and recent studies on auditory invehicle information presentation have examined only a limited range of tasks (e.g., cell phone operation tasks or verbal tasks such as reading digit strings). The present study used a dual task paradigm to evaluate a plausible scenario in which users navigated a song list. We applied enhanced auditory menu navigation cues, including spearcons (i.e., compressed speech) and a spindex (i.e., a speech index that used brief audio cues to communicate the user's position in a long menu list). Twentyfour undergraduates navigated through an alphabetized song list of 150 song titles-rendered as an auditory menu-while they concurrently played a simple, perceptual-motor, ball-catching game. The menu was presented with text-to-speech (TTS) alone, TTS plus one of three types of enhanced auditory cues, or no sound at all. Both performance of the primary task (success rate of the game) and the secondary task (menu search time) were better with the auditory menus than with no sound. Subjective workload scores (NASA TLX) and user preferences favored the enhanced auditory cue types. Results are discussed in terms of multiple resources theory and practical IVT design applications.

“Spindex” (Speech Index) Enhances Menus on Touch Screen Devices with Tapping, Wheeling, and Flicking

“…Spearcons have shown positive results in a type of menu list navigation and could be automatically generated. However, in the previous navigation experiment with 150-item lists [Jeon et al 2009], the spindex-enhanced TTS menu outperformed the spearconenhanced condition. Moreover, for input gestures such as wheeling and flicking in the current study, spearcons are still too long to implement in practical applications.…”

“…Likewise, spindex cues were significantly favored over TTS-alone by undergraduate students (e.g., 8.84 with spindex cues and 5.08 with TTS-alone on 0 to10 functionally helpful scale) and visually impaired users (e.g., 7.77 with spindex cues and 6.08 with TTS-alone) [Jeon and Walker 2011]. In a dual task context such as navigating a menu while playing a driving-like game, all of the sound conditions reduced subjective workload score for overall tasks compared with the no sound condition [Jeon et al 2009]. Even the spindex + TTS and the spindex + spearcon + TTS condition showed marginally lower perceived workload than TTS-only condition.…”

Testing New Solutions for Eco-Driving: Haptic Gas Pedals in Electric Vehicles

“…However, 20 years later it is being used in several fields and studies with the same purpose: namely, evaluating cognitive workload in humans while performing a task. In the transportation field it has also been used in many different studies, such as for evaluating driving distractions [32] or assessing in-vehicle assistance systems [7] [29] [35]. In this case, workload is defined as "a term that represents the cost of accomplishing mission requirements for the human operator" [36].…”

Voice interfaced vehicle user help

“…Research on auditory display for driving has been mainly focused on collision warning signals [1] and only recent studies on invehicle information presentation have examined other actions such as using cell phones [2], navigation systems [37] or browsing infotainment content. The large effect that speech commands, and voice interfaces in general, have on the usability of the vehicle has been reported in a study [38] that points out how many real-life users might not consult the manual.…”

“…This trend has also reached the automotive cockpits in the form of In-Vehicle Information Systems (IVISs). Digital media such as pictures, video and audio can now provide driver-relevant information, entertainment and productivity [1]. But multimedia information has also proven to be the source of major driver distraction since their interfaces are not optimized for driving performance [2][3] [4], inputs and outputs differ greatly between models [5], and these complications affect drivers increasingly as they age [6].…”