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An Exploration of Prosocial Aspects of Communication Cues between Automated Vehicles and Pedestrians
- 1. An Exploration of Prosocial Aspects of Communication Cues between Automated Vehicles and Pedestrians Shadan Sadeghian Marc Hassenzahl Kai Eckoldt
- 2. Source:www.simwalk.ch/news/news_14_05.html Road traffic is a social situation!
- 3. Communication between Driver and Pedestrian in Manual Driving 3 Source:www.wsj.com/ • Vehicle movements: speed and acceleration • Non-verbal communication: facial expression, eye contact, gestures, body movement
- 4. Prosocial Driving “driving behaviors that potentially protect the well-being of passengers, other drivers, and pedestrians, and that promote effective cooperation with others in the driving environment” 4
- 5. How mindful and prosocial do automated vehicles behave and communicate in traffic? 5 https://vimeo.com/99160686
- 6. Communication between AVs and Pedestrians 6 Source:Löckenetal.2019
- 8. Experimental Vignette Study • 72 Participants (47 Female) • Three-factorial mixed design: • Cue (between subject): with, without • Scenario (within subject): 4 traffic scenarios • Role (within subject): driver, pedestrian 8
- 9. Scenario 1 9
- 10. Scenario 2 10
- 11. Scenario 3 11
- 12. Scenario 4 12
- 13. 13
- 14. Perception of Communication 14 • Communication was adequate • Communication was clear • Communication was effective • I trust the communication • I trust the car to make appropriate actions • I feel safe around the car
- 15. Traffic Climate-Perception of Procyclicality 15 Tense □ □ □ □ □ □ Harmonious Aggressive □ □ □ □ □ □ Friendly Hazardous □ □ □ □ □ □ Safe Selfish □ □ □ □ □ □ Helpful Recklessly □ □ □ □ □ □ Considerate Unfair □ □ □ □ □ □ Fair Demanding □ □ □ □ □ □ Compliant Excited □ □ □ □ □ □ Calm Unreasonable □ □ □ □ □ □ Reasonable Rough □ □ □ □ □ □ Polite Unpleasant □ □ □ □ □ □ Pleasant
- 16. Results-Communication 16 CommunicationWithout < Communicationwith F(1,71)=8.49, p<0.05 CommunicationPedestrian < Communicationdriver F(1,71)=39.29, p<0.01
- 19. Results-Traffic Climate 19 Traffic ClimatePedestrian < Traffic Climatedriver F(1,71)=8.49, p<0.05
- 21. Results-Traffic Climate 21 Traffic ClimatePedestrian < Traffic Climatedriver (t= 4.56, p<0.001) Traffic ClimatePedestrian < Traffic Climatedriver (t= 2.43, p<0.017)
- 24. Results Better the communication between AV and the pedestrian is the better the perception of the traffic climate rs(70)= 0.743, p<0.001 24
- 25. Are communication cues between pedestrians and AVs needed at all? 25 Pragmatic: • With cues participants found the communication more clear, effective, and could trust the vehicle • Previous works have also shown that these cues are helpful for understanding the AV’s intent
- 26. Are communication cues between pedestrians and AVs needed at all? 26 Prosocial: • There is a positive correlation between communication and how well the traffic climate is perceived. This nevertheless, depends highly on the traffic situation • The designs of future communication cues should highly consider the variances between traffic situations.
Editor's Notes
- Road traffic is a social situation where many participants are expected to interact with caution and mutual respect [15]. However, this is not always the case. For example, in dense traffic situations, drivers tend to get more aggressive [25]. Obviously, such behavior does not only affect the driver; but also pedestrians and cyclists [20].
- In the case of manual driving, the driver is in control of vehicle maneuvers and consequently in control of the subtle communication with other traffic members. This communication is entirely nonverbal. At a pedestrian crossing, for example, drivers convey their intentions indirectly through vehicle movement patterns, such as speed and acceleration, but also more directly through non-verbal communication, such as facial expression, eye contact, gestures, and body movement [11, 24]. These communications not only ensure pedestrians’ safety but also contribute to prosociality and the overall traffic climate.
- With increasing levels of vehicle automation, and decreasing human control and engagement in the driving task itself, this communication will inevitably change. The question is how “mindful” and “prosocial” automated vehicles (AV) behave and communicate in traffic
- In the last years, several researchers studied the design of communication between AVs and other road users. Most of these works focused on the effect of these cues on decision making for crossing the street. Nevertheless, it is not clear whether such communication supports perceptions of prosociality. While the decisions related to the design of technology for automated vehicles are mostly technical, they have social consequences
- In project KOLA (1), we designed a “language” of projected elements to improve the communication between drivers/AV. In the experiment I am going to present, we focus the effect of additional communicative cues between the AV and the pedestrian on experienced communication and prosociality (i.e., traffic climate) in four specific scenarios of giving way or yielding The language consists of several elements. A white forward projection dynamically creates a smaller or larger corridor in front of the car to provide an additional indication of speed. when the car comes to a full stop, the corridor turns into a solid white bar , the white bar is supposed to increase feelings of safety since it acts as a solid, albeit only virtual barrier, between pedestrian and car. In addition to this automatically generated cues, the AV (or a driver) can trigger a green overlay projection, which moves from right to left, thereby mimicking an extension of a typical hand gesture used to give way. We made several video vignettes to demonstrate these communication cues in real-world situations. To do so, we first filmed real-life traffic situations and then overlayed the animated light cues via Adobe’s After Effects.
- To address our research question we conducted a Experimental Vignette Study using SurveyMonkey Our online experiment had a three-factorial, mixed design. Two videos were created for each scenario, one with the cues and one without the cues (Factor “Cue”). Cue was a between-subjects factor, that is, a participant either saw scenarios with or without cues. We further chose four scenarios which I will show in the following slides Each participant was asked to assess the communication as well as the traffic climate in each scenario , once from the perspective of the driver and once from the perspective of the pedestrian (Factor: “Role”).
- We chose these four scenarios to have a combination of different ages, gender, and vulnerability of pedestrians involved. For each scenario, the participants could first watch the video and later look at video stills of the crossing scene while going through the questions.
- The questionnaire consisted of two parts, one dedicated to the perception of the communication and one to the perception of the traffic climate (as an indicator of prosociality). communication was assessed with six items, on a 5 likert scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree
- Traffic climate was assessed with the Traffic Climate3 questionnaire [23]. The questionnaire consists of 11 six-point semantic differential items to rate the experienced climate
- Our study revealed a significant effect of cues on the communication. With cues, participants rated the communication as more adequate, clearer, more effective, could trust it more and felt safer depending on it. We also found a significant effect of role; the communication between the AV and pedestrian was perceived better from the perspective of the driver than the pedestrian. This shows that from the drivers’ perspective, users feel less ambiguity and risk depending on the communication than when they are in the pedestrian role.
- We found a main effect of the traffic scenario that showed that the perception of communication varies significantly across traffic scenarios The communication in Unsigned Crossing and Zebra Crossing scenarios was perceived better than the Traffic Light and Pedestrian Zone scenarios. One possible interpretation of these results could be that since in Unsigned Crossing and Zebra Crossing scenarios the road users are more vulnerable, the communication was perceived better than Traffic Light and Pedestrian Zone scenarios.
- the interaction effect between role and scenario indicates that these differences between the perspective of driver and pedestrian are highly dependent on the traffic situation. According to our results, the more regulated the traffic situation, the more effective the drivers perceive communication in comparison to pedestrians. This could be due to the possibility to predict the pedestrians’ behavior based on the common understanding of the traffic regulations.
- Our results from the traffic climate questionnaire showed that participants’ role in the traffic situation has an effect on how they perceive the situation. We found that drivers of AVs have a better perception of traffic climate and evaluated the situation with more positive attributes than pedestrians. One reason for this can be the higher vulnerability of pedestrians in comparison to drivers, that lead drivers to perceive the situation as more positive (calm, safe, friendly, etc.).
- We further observed a significant main effect of scenario. Traffic climate was perceived significantly better in unsigened crossing than zebra crossing, traffic light and pedestrian zone.
- This was further qualified by role and scenario interaction that showed that only in zebra crossing and traffic light scenarios there is a significant difference between the perception of drivers and pedestrians. In these scenarios, the right of way is determined by the traffic lights, and zebra lines respectively which make the expected actions from both sides clearer. This can be a reason for the more positive perception of the drivers of the situation i.e. as long as the vehicle is following the predefined regulations, they feel a better traffic climate.
- we found only a marginal main effect of cue on perceived traffic climate. However, looking more closely at the data revealed that scenarios Pedestrian Zone, Unsigned Crossing and Zebra Crossing followed a common pattern of a better climate, if cues where present, while the Traffic Light scenario showed no effect (Figure 3).
- A further explorative ANOVA excluding Traffic Light scenario revealed a significant main effect of cue, F(1,71)= 16.054, p = 0.023, η2p = 0.071 with a better climate with (M=4.56) than without cues (M=4.18). One possible interpretation of this may lie in the particular situation that in this scenario, a traffic light already highly regulates the situation, while in all other scenarios the situation was less regulated. Possibly, cues have more effect in situations, where regulation is not already present.
- Finally, a strong positive correlation between ratings of communication and traffic climate, rs (70)= 0.743, p<0.001. This implies that the better the communication between AV and the pedestrian is the better the perception of the traffic climate.
- These results tackle the question "Are communication cues between AVs and pedestrians needed at all?" From a pragmatic perspective, our results indicate that with the cues, participants found the communication more clear, effective, and could trust the vehicle more. Previous works have also shown that these cues are helpful for understanding the AV’s intent. There are, however, still debates on whether these cues result in faster or less erroneous decisions.
- From a prosocial behavior perspective, our results showed that there is a positive correlation between communication and how well the traffic climate is perceived. This nevertheless, depends highly on the traffic situation; although communication cues can increase mutual understandability and mindfulness in some traffic scenarios, they can be ineffective in some others. Therefore, the designs of future communication cues should highly consider the variances between traffic situations. Despite prosociality and traffic climate do not directly address safety, as previous works have shown, neglecting them and negative behavior can lead to aggressive driving or other safety threatening behavior [20].