Augmented reality landmarks on windshield and their effects on the acquisition of spatial knowledge in autonomous vehicles

摘要

Autonomous vehicles, which free drivers from driving, aregaining increasing interest for future travel needs. But thedegradation of driver’s spatial knowledge will likely worsenwhen drivers no longer need to actively steer nor pay attentionto the environment. This study extends the theory ofvisualising distant landmarks on mobile phone to windshieldusing Augmented Reality (AR), to support spatial learning.This study investigates the impact of AR distant landmarks(with vs. without AR landmarks) and road conditions (highwayvs. local road) on acquiring spatial knowledge throughan experiment using simulated videos of autonomous driving.Participants are randomly assigned to one of two scenariosto complete tasks which assessed their acquired spatialknowledge one the route-, directional, and configural levels.Results show that distant landmarks enhance the efficiencyof acquiring route- and directional knowledge, although theeffectiveness of acquiring route knowledge with AR landmarksis not significant on local road. Configurational knowledgeis more likely impacted by the road type instead of theAR landmarks. The results indciate the necessity of carryingout follow-up studies on symbolising additional informationin AR landmarks for supporting spatial learning and evaluatetheir impacts on the spatial knowledge at the configurationallevel.