Steven Landry

If You're Angry, Turn the Music on: Music Can Mitigate Anger Effects on Driving Performance

Research has focused on musics negative effects on a drivers attention, whereas little research has addressed the possibility of using music to reduce emotional effects on driving. In the present study, we investigate how music can mitigate the degenerated driving performance associated with angry driving. To this end, fifty-three drivers participated in a simulated driving study either with or without induced anger. Three groups of participants with induced anger drove in a simulator while listening to happy or sad instrumental pieces, or without music. In the control group, anger was not induced and they did not listen to music during driving. The results show that participants who listened to either happy or sad music had significantly fewer driving errors than those who did not listen to music. However, no significant differences were found between happy and sad music conditions. Results are discussed with an affect regulation model and future research.

Development Tool for Rapid Evaluation of Eyes-free In-vehicle Gesture Controls

In-vehicle controls, such as navigation systems, radio dials, and climate controls, can be visually demanding and can increase crash risk. We are attempting to use commercially available gesture detection equipment to develop an eyes-free system that can provide access to the same controls without increasing crash risk. We envision a system that can be controlled by intuitive in-air gestures. Information about system status and gesture detection can be provided through an auditory menu display, rather than the visual modality as in touchscreen controls. Here, we describe our motivation to develop the system and describe a tool we have developed to help researchers, even those without programming experience, to configure multiple system designs for rapid usability evaluation and iteration practices.

Listen to Your Drive: An In-Vehicle Sonification Prototyping Tool for Driver State and Performance Data

Automotive UI designers are searching for alternative avenues for delivering information to the driver that complement the mostly visual task of driving. Auditory channels provide the flexibility to display a wide variety of information to the driver without increasing the workload of driving task. It is important to identify types of auditory displays and sonification strategies that provide integral information necessary for the driving task, and not overload the driver with unnecessary or intrusive data. To this end, we have developed an in-vehicle interactive sonification system using the medium-fidelity simulator and neurophysiological devices. The system is intended to integrate driving performance data and driver affective state data in real-time. The present paper introduces the architecture of our in-vehicle interactive sonification system and potential sonification strategies for providing feedback to the driver in an intuitive and non-intrusive manner.

Technologies Expand Aesthetic Dimensions: Visualization and Sonification of Embodied Penwald Drawings

Even though defining art gets more and more difficult, reintegrating art and technology seems to be a clear trend. The present paper aims to show how technologies can expand aesthetic dimensions of art works. Michigan Tech researchers collaborated with a world-renowned artist, Tony Orrico in the immersive virtual environment. While he performed, multiple cameras tracked his body movements and physiological devices logged his biosignals (respiration, heart rate, etc.). Then, the system translated the data into visualization and sonification. Incremental aesthetic dimensions (representation-performance, 2d−3d, outside-inside) obtained based on this art-technology collaboration are discussed with research in progress.

Driver Behavior at Simulated Railroad Crossings

Highway-rail grade crossing collisions and fatalities have been in decline for several decades, but a recent ‘plateau’ has spurred additional interest in novel safety research methods. With the support of Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), Michigan Tech researchers have performed a large-scale study that utilizes the SHRP2 Naturalistic Driving Study (NDS) data to analyze how various crossing warning devices affect driver behavior and to validate the driving simulation data. To this end, representative crossings from the NDS dataset were recreated in a driving simulator. This paper describes driver behavior at simulated rail crossings modeled after real world crossings included in the NDS dataset. Results suggest that drivers may not react properly to crossbucks and active warnings in the off position. Participants performed the safest behaviors in reaction to STOP signs. The majority of participants also reported an increase in vigilance and compliant behaviors after repeated exposure to RR crossings, which was supported by the results of a linear regression analysis. Participants used the presence of active RR warnings (in the off position) as a cue that there is no oncoming train and it is safe to cross without preparing to yield (operationalized as visually scanning for a train and active speed reduction). Drivers react the most appropriately to STOP signs, but it is unclear whether or not these behaviors would lead to a decrease in train-vehicle collisions.

Eyes-free In-vehicle Gesture Controls: Auditory-only Displays Reduced Visual Distraction and Workload

Visual distractions increase crash risk while driving. Our research focuses on creating and evaluating an air gesture control system that is less visually demanding than current infotainment systems. We completed a within-subjects experiment with 24 participants, each of whom completed a simulated drive while using six different prototypes, in turn. The primary research questions were the influence of combinations of visual and auditory displays (visual, visual/auditory, auditory) and control orientation (vertical vs horizontal). We recorded lane departures, eye glance behavior, secondary task performance, and driver workload. Results demonstrated that for lane departures all prototypes performed comparably, with the auditory-only showing a strong tendency of improvements. A deeper look illustrated a tradeoff between eyes-on-road time and secondary task completion time for the auditory-only display -- the safest but slowest among the six prototypes. The auditory-only also reduced overall workload. Control orientation showed only small subjective effect in favor of vertical controls.

Getting active with passive crossings: Investigating the use of in-vehicle auditory alerts for highway-rail grade crossings

This paper investigates the plausibility of a novel in-vehicle auditory alert system to warn drivers of the presence of railroad crossings. Train-Vehicle collisions at highway-rail grade crossings continue to be a major issue despite improvements over the past several decades. In 2014 there were 2,286 highway-rail incidents leading to 852 injuries and 269 fatalities. This marked the first time in the past decade that incident rates increased from the previous year. To prevent the overall trend in safety improvement from plateauing, interest is shifting towards novel warning devices that can be applied to all crossings at minimal cost. These novel warnings are intended to complement but not replace the primary visual warnings that are already in place at both active and passive crossings. Few in-vehicle warning systems have been described and tested in the rail safety literature. The ones that have been described only manipulate the modality or reliability of the warning message, and pay little attention to message content, timing of presentation, mappings between crossing events and warning logic, and driver habituation associated with long term use. To this end, a line of research has been being carried out to design in-vehicle auditory alerts and measure subjective preference and driver behavior in response to in-vehicle auditory alerts. The first study included a subjective evaluation of potential auditory cues. Cues rated as most effective and appropriate were included in the design of prototype systems in the follow up study. The second study will measure compliance rates in a driving simulator with and without in-vehicle auditory alerts. The results of first study and the study design for the second study are discussed.Copyright