The Unconscious Learning Effect on Driver Attention

Abstract

The rate of traffic accidents caused by low driver awareness for the confirmation of surrounding safety is high. In this study, we improved driver safety confirmation by using the technique of unconscious learning and action. Here, we assumed that drivers will unconsciously learn an alarm pattern that sounds during dangerous scenarios when driving. In our experiment, we used a driving simulator and eye mark recorder. Subjects were drivers who do not check their environment fully. The experiment was conducted five times every few days. The alarm we used to encourage safety confirmation had a frequency of 250 Hz and an intermittent sound. This frequency is slightly higher than the noise of a car. The experiment interval was every three days or every week. In the first session, we checked the subjects’ safety confirmation on a course with intersections where dangerous scenarios played out. After a few days, the subjects drove the course with the alarm sounding at the intersections, and ended up looking around at their surroundings when hearing the alarm. We told only some of the subjects the details and timing of the alarm. After this drive, we asked them whether the sound seemed noisy or not. This was repeated three times. Finally, the subjects drove another different course with intersections with dangerous scenarios. We then compared their safety confirmation between the first and last experiment, and found that the subjects looked at their surroundings better in the later experiment, than they did at first. The subjects found the alarm noisy the first time, but gradually grew used to it, so that it eventually stopped seeming noisy. From this result, we determined that the effect of unconscious learning with an alarm can change a driver’s safety confirmation.