A Lab-Based Investigation of Reaction Time and Reading Performance using Different In-Vehicle Reading Interfaces during Self-Driving

The demand for autonomous vehicles (AVs) is rapidly growing these years. As AVs have a potential to free drivers’ cognitive resources from driving to other tasks, reading is one of the common activities users conduct in travel multitasking. Nevertheless, ways to supporting reading in AVs have been little explored. To fill this gap, we explored the design of an in-vehicle reader on a windshield in AVs along three dimensions: dynamics, position, and text segmentation. We conducted two in-lab within-subject experiments to examine the eight kinds of in-car reading modalities that represented the combinations of the three dimensions in terms of drivers’ reaction time and reading comprehension. Our results show a case where an adaptive positioning would be particularly beneficial for supporting reading in AVs. And our general suggestion is to use a static reading zone presented on-sky and in sentences because it leads to faster reaction and better reading comprehension.