Raising Awareness for Confusion - Stimulating the Discussion About Robustness of Mode Awareness Assessment in Automated Driving

Abstract: Mode awareness is a complex psychological construct concerning the awareness of the currently active mode in an entire multi-mode system such as vehicles equipped with driving automation systems. The article aims to stimulate scientific discussion around the test quality of mode awareness assessment related to driving automation. Often, behavioral metrics are examined to draw conclusions on drivers’ understanding of the driving automation system and its status. Here, behavior deemed adequate for the active driving mode is subsequently attributed to mode awareness, while mode inadequate behavior is attributed to mode confusion. Besides cognitive representation of information, other influencing variables can contribute to the observed behavior. Considering basic psychological processes of information processing and action selection, the authors highlight how alternative explanations for observed behavior emerge. The authors advocate following recent approaches of combining metrics to capture human-machine-interactions holistically and draw more reliable conclusions while ruling out alternative explanations.

Keywords: Mode confusion, mode error, assessment of latent variables, human-factor research, human-machine-interaction, action selection, multi-mode driving, mode switching

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1007023

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