Speech Auditory Alerts Promote Memory for Alerted Events in a Video-Simulated Self-Driving Car Ride

Objective: Auditory displays could be essential to helping drivers maintain situation awareness in autonomous vehicles, but to date, few or no studies have examined the effectiveness of different types of auditory displays for this application scenario. Background: Recent advances in the development of autonomous vehicles (i.e., self-driving cars) have suggested that widespread automation of driving may be tenable in the near future. Drivers may be required to monitor the status of automation programs and vehicle conditions as they engage in secondary leisure or work tasks (entertainment, communication, etc.) in autonomous vehicles. Method: An experiment compared memory for alerted events—a component of Level 1 situation awareness—using speech alerts, auditory icons, and a visual control condition during a video-simulated self-driving car ride with a visual secondary task. The alerts gave information about the vehicle’s operating status and the driving scenario. Results: Speech alerts resulted in better memory for alerted events. Both auditory display types resulted in less perceived effort devoted toward the study tasks but also greater perceived annoyance with the alerts. Conclusion: Speech auditory displays promoted Level 1 situation awareness during a simulation of a ride in a self-driving vehicle under routine conditions, but annoyance remains a concern with auditory displays. Application: Speech auditory displays showed promise as a means of increasing Level 1 situation awareness of routine scenarios during an autonomous vehicle ride with an unrelated secondary task.