Situation awareness and motion sickness in automated vehicle driving experience : a preliminary study of peripheral visual information

Future automated car users are expected to perform non-driving activities when the car is operated in full automated mode. Hence, situation awareness (SA) is expected to decrease whereas chances of motion sickness (MS) to occur have increased as a result of the mismatch between what is felt and seen. In this study, we try to assess the level of SA and MS when users are watching a video and subjected to accelerations produced by automated defensive driving style. A light- based prototype was placed within the users’ peripheral field of view to indicate the future direction of the automated car. The experiment was done on a real road condition using a modified instrumented vehicle under the urban driving context. A within-subject design, with and without a prototype, was conducted. The preliminary result (N=10) indicates that higher SA and lower MS with the peripheral visual prototype compare to the controlled condition.