Resync: Towards Transferring Somnolent Passengers to Consciousness

Abstract

The advance of automated driving allows the users to engage in non-driving related activities such as sleeping. However, until full automation is reached, the user may have to interact with the vehicle, for example, in planned take-overs, which requires the user to be awake and conscious. To evaluate auditory and visual awakening concepts (alarm, fading in 5, and fading in 20s), we conducted a between-subject (N=45) Virtual Reality study, in which participants dozed/slept for 15min, were then awoken, and then had to complete an ordering, a stroop, and a counting task. We only found a significant difference in the perceived sleep duration, which was highest in the alarm condition.