Effects of Ride Motion on the Speed and Accuracy of In-Vehicle Pointing Tasks

Abstract

Terrain-induced vibration of a moving vehicle adversely affects the ability to quickly and accurately perform in-vehicle pointing tasks by altering the planned fingertip trajectory. The relationship between movement speed and accuracy is a result of the combined use of visual and somatosensory feedbacks which are used to discern movement deviations and make necessary compensatory movements. Participants (N=20) performed three-dimensional rapid pointing tasks under stationary and ride motion conditions to three touchpanel displays. Ride motion contributed to increased reaction and movement times and increased endpoint variability. Trajectory deviations were correlated to the principal direction of vehicle acceleration. Reaches orthogonal to the dominant vehicle acceleration exhibited larger endpoint variability, and reaches to the elevated touchpanel resulted in the largest variability across all motion conditions. Principal axes of endpoint ellipses were along the on-axis and off-axis directions of fingertip movement.