The Effect Of Mapping And Visual Highlighting Design On The Effectiveness Of Audiovisual Warnings For Automotive Collision Avoidance

Driver error is one of the main causes of traffic accidents.The Collision Warning System(CWS)uses radar and Car2 X communication technology to detect hazardous events on the road,and issues auditory,visual,or tactile warnings to alert drivers,helping them to quickly react and avoid accidents caused by mistakes.The warning signal bridges the CWS and the driver,and is crucial for the effectiveness of the CWS.Visual and auditory single-modal warnings are currently the most common warning types,but they have limitations in conveying accident information and effectively capturing attention.Audio-visual bimodal warnings combine visual and auditory signals,integrating the advantages of both signals and providing a redundancy gain effect through the joint processing of signals in different human sensory channels.However,there are certain differences in the design and application context of audiovisual warning in existing studies,which have limited the applicable scenarios of previous warning design.There is currently no research that systematically provides design guidelines for audio-visual warnings.To fill the gap,this study proposed three audio-visual warning design and explored their impact on the effectiveness of audiovisual warnings in simulated driving scenarios.Furthermore,the study investigated the effectiveness of the optimal audio-visual warning design in different distracted driving scenarios to expand the applicable scenarios for the proposed design.Study 1 investigated the effects of mapping,animation,and border design on the effectiveness of audio-visual warnings through two experiments:(1)Experiment 1used auditory and visual icons as high-mapping audio-visual signals and designed 4single-modal warnings(visual high/low mapping,auditory high/low mapping)and 4dual-modal warnings(high-mapping audio-visual warning,low-mapping audio-visual warning,high-mapping visual warning and low-mapping audio warning,lowmapping visual warning and high-mapping audio warning).The results showed that the mapping design could improve the effectiveness of audio-visual warnings.The audio-visual warnings with auditory icons performed better than those with abstract auditory signals,and drivers also preferred auditory icons.(2)Based on the results of Experiment 1,Experiment 2 investigated the effects of animation(non-animation,animation)and border(no border,border)design on warning effectiveness.The results showed that animation and border design could attract driver’s attention more quickly and reduce the visual attentional demands of icons.However,only border design could effectively reduce drivers’ reaction time.Among all indicators,Experiment 2 proposed that the effectiveness of the “auditory stimuli + visual stimuli with border” warning was better than other warning types.Study 2 investigated the effectiveness of the optimal audio-visual warning design proposed in Study 1(compared with auditory and visual warnings)under different input(auditory,visual)and output(manual,voice)distracted driving scenarios.The results showed that the types of distraction affected the effectiveness of audio-visual warnings,and only in the “auditory input + manual output” distraction scenario did the driving performance of audio-visual warnings outpaced single-modal warnings.Other types of distractions negatively affected the effectiveness of audio-visual warnings.In summary,this study explored the effectiveness of three audio-visual warning designs,and found that mapping,animation,and border design can improve drivers’ visual attention allocation patterns,and mapping and border design can also speed up the drivers’ reaction time.This study also found the negative impact of different types of distractions on the effectiveness of audio-visual warnings,and that drivers with different types of distractions may need different warnings.The results of this study can provide a reference for commercial CWS warning design.