Effects of NDRT interface display and control modalities on motion sickness during autonomous driving

Abstract

This study comparatively evaluated four different non-driving-related task (NDRT) interface designs varying in the interface display and control modalities in terms of their impacts on the severity of autonomous vehicle (AV) motion sickness (MS). In an on-road experiment, participants conducted a simulated AV NDRT (a letter 2-back task) using each NDRT interface design. The independent variables were NDRT interface display modality and control modality. Display modality had two levels: visual (V) and auditory (A). Control modality also had two levels: manual (M) and speech (S). Thus, the four NDRT interface designs were: VM, VS, AM and AS. The dependent measures were the pre-post differences in the motion sickness assessment questionnaire (MSAQ) scores quantifying the increases in MS due to the NDRT. Display modality significantly affected all the dependent measures. The mean pre-post differences were larger for visual than for auditory. Control modality did not affect any of the dependent measures