Abstract
Can driver steering behaviors, such as a lane change maneuver, be executed without visual feedback? According to Wallis et al. (2002), drivers fail to execute the return phase of a lane change when steering without vision. The authors report systematic final heading errors biased in the direction of the lane change as evidence that drivers do not have knowledge of the relationship between steering angle and heading. Is lane changing a special case, due to the instruction to change position and minor required changes in heading, or does this result generalize to other steering behaviors? Suppose that, when asked to perform a lane (position) change, drivers fail to recognize that a heading change is required to make a position change with a car. However, given an explicit path, the necessary heading changes become apparent. Here we show that when heading requirements are made explicit, on average, subjects accurately implement the return phase. As a measure, final heading error provides minimal information about the relative phases of the maneuver. A more representative measure is the ratio of the heading change of the return phase to the heading change of the initial phase. In our experiment, subjects executed “lane change” maneuvers with and without explicit heading information in a virtual reality driving simulator. Without explicit heading information, the return ratio was 0.28, essentially replicating the results of Wallis et al. (2002). With explicit heading information, however, the return ratio was 0.96. We will also be reporting results with an electric vehicle outfitted with a portable virtual reality system.
Supported by AFOSR grant F49620-02-1-0145