Enhancing the Occlusion Technique as an Assessment Tool for Driver Visual Distraction

In-vehicle information and communication systems (IVIS) are meanwhile becoming more and more standard equipment in modern cars. Despite their obvious benefits there are concerns about risks arising from visual load and distraction caused by these systems when used by the driver while driving. It is unequivocally acknowledged that the design of the Human-Machine-Interface (HMI) plays a crucial role for the compatibility between the demands of interacting with IVIS while driving and the primary driving task. Therefore, the so called Occlusion Technique has been developed as an assessment tool for the HMI of IVIS in several research projects and by international standardization. In the present paper the development of the so called Enhanced Occlusion Technique (EOT) is described. EOT provides a more realistic simulation of the real driving task and driver workload. This was achieved by developing a continuous auditory tracking task, which subjects had to perform additionally to the IVIS task under occlusion conditions. Results of the experiment presented here provide clear evidence that the EOT is a recommended approach to improve the sensitivity of the Occlusion Technique.