The projection of information on the windshield of the car worsens driving safety

Last week, researchers at the University of Toronto published a paper whose conclusions warn drivers against overuse of fashionable systems that project additional information related to a car and a smartphone onto a windshield. Such a system, conceived as facilitating driving, according to scientists, actually increases the flow of information that the driver needs to process and distracts him from the road.

Such systems are called Augmented-reality head-up displays (AR-HUD, or indicators on the windshield with augmented reality). This technology, originally developed exclusively for military aviation (primarily for jet fighters and helicopters), is currently used in civil aviation and the automotive industry.
')
The pilot of a military aircraft has to constantly assess both the environment and the readings of numerous instruments. Displayed on the helmet display the necessary information that complements the view through the glass, facilitates its work.

Automobile manufacturers are also thinking about creating such a system. The principle of operation of the systems is different - here are projectors built into the design of the dashboard , navigators with a built-in projector , and even simple applications for smartphones . If you put the smartphone on the dashboard, the reflection of its screen in the windshield will work like an AR-HUD.



Theoretically, such a system does give advantages. You can display the current speed on the windshield, recommendations of the navigator about the nearest turns, notifications about messages on the smartphone, time. Advanced systems can assist the driver, suggesting the distance to the nearest car and offering opportunities for maneuvering.

Everything would be fine - but it does not happen. “Drivers have to distribute their attention, giving away some of its new visual information,” explains psychology professor Jan Spence. “Drivers need to focus not only on what is happening on the road around them, as usual, but also to pay attention to all kinds of notifications.”

The professor and his students developed two-step testing . At first, the subjects tested their attention on a computer, counting random points appearing on the screen. And in some cases, a square appeared unpredictably on the screen, which also had to be tried to be noticed - this was a secondary visual stimulus.

It turned out that in 7-10% of cases, depending on the number of points that the participants counted, they missed the appearance of an additional square on the screen. In addition, the accuracy of counting the number of points also decreased. When the attention of the subjects was absorbed by one main task, they coped with the secondary task worse, and the quality of the performance of the main one fell.

And the driver needs not only to see and recognize something unexpected, but also to react to it adequately. In addition, it is necessary to distinguish, say, warnings of a possible collision and notification of the need to make a turn - otherwise competing with each other warnings will cause more harm than good.

For this, the second test was complicated, and together with the points that had to be counted, figures of different shapes (triangle, square, rhombus) could appear on the screen. Such a test showed that the appearance of an additional figure is often not noticed, or its form is perceived incorrectly. In addition, it turned out that the speed of the main task was reduced by 200% with the appearance of an additional figure.

As a result, it follows from this study that a set of additional information that should complement the driver’s information about what is happening and facilitate driving a car will, in fact, most likely only distract him from the original task of driving the car safely.