Threat-cued or action-cued? Effects of attention guidance strategy on decision-support in automated driving under complex takeover situations

In complex driving scenarios with multi-source risks, effective attentional guidance is essential for drivers to regain situational awareness. This study investigates how attentional cueing strategies embedded in takeover requests (TORs), and varying environmental visibility levels influence driver decision-making during automation-to-human transitions. Forty-eight participants drove in a simulator under three visibility conditions (clear, light fog, dense fog) and received either action-oriented or hazard-oriented cues, plus a no-cue baseline. Dependent measures included takeover time, maximum deceleration, standard deviation of lateral offset, time to collision, eye movement metrics, and subjective assessments. Overall, the threat-cued strategy supports autonomous decision-making by enhancing situational awareness, whereas the action-cued strategy improves takeover quality by providing intention-aligned guidance under limited visibility, though it may entail a potential risk of automation complacency.