Recent research has shown that the human brain tends to treat stimuli occurring in peripersonal space as being more behaviorally relevant and attention demanding than stimuli occurring in extrapersonal space. These brain mechanisms may be used in the design of warning signals for drivers. This paper describes three experiments that were designed to assess the relative speed with which people can initiate speeded head-orienting responses following the presentation of spatial warning signals. The first experiment assessed the effectiveness of various different unisensory warning signals in eliciting a head-turning response to look at the potential source of danger requiring participants' immediate attention. The second experiment assessed the latency of a driver's responses to events occurring in the cued direction. The third experiment assessed the relative effectiveness of various warning signals in reorienting a person's gaze back to a central driving task while he or she was distracted by a secondary task. The results show that participants initiated head-turning movements and made speeded discrimination or braking responses significantly more rapidly following the presentation of a close rear auditory warning signal than following the presentation of either a far frontal auditory warning signal, a vibrotactile warning signal presented to their waist, or a peripheral visual warning signal. These findings indicate that peripersonal warning signals could be effective in improving driver performance.
['Christy P.S. Ho', 'Charles Spence']
Using Peripersonal Warning Signals to Orient a Driver's Gaze