
In-Vehicle Interface Adaptation to Environment-Induced
Cognitive Workload
Elena Meiser
German Research Center for Articial
Intelligence (DFKI)
Saarbrücken, Germany
elena.meiser@dfki.de
Alexandra Alles
German Research Center for Articial
Intelligence (DFKI)
Saarbrücken, Germany
alexandra_katrin.alles@dfki.de
Samuel Selter
German Research Center for Articial
Intelligence (DFKI)
Saarbrücken, Germany
samuel.selter@dfki.de
Marco Molz
German Research Center for Articial
Intelligence (DFKI)
Saarbrücken, Germany
marco.molz@dfki.de
Amr Gomaa
German Research Center for Articial
Intelligence (DFKI)
Saarbrücken, Germany
Saarland Informatics Campus
Saarbrücken, Germany
amr.gomaa@dfki.de
Guillermo Reyes
German Research Center for Articial
Intelligence (DFKI)
Saarbrücken, Germany
Saarland Informatics Campus
Saarbrücken, Germany
guillermo.reyes@dfki.de
ABSTRACT
Many car accidents are caused by human distractions, including
cognitive distractions. In-vehicle human-machine interfaces (HMIs)
have evolved throughout the years, providing more and more func-
tions. Interaction with the HMIs can, however, also lead to further
distractions and, as a consequence, accidents. To tackle this prob-
lem, we propose using adaptive HMIs that change according to
the mental workload of the driver. In this work, we present the
current status as well as preliminary results of a user study using
naturalistic secondary tasks while driving (i.e., the primary task)
that attempt to understand the eects of one such interface.
CCS CONCEPTS
•Human-centered computing →User centered design
;
•Ap-
plied computing →Psychology.
KEYWORDS
Psychophysiological Measurements; User Experience; Adaptive
Interfaces; Mental Workload; Multimodal Interaction
ACM Reference Format:
Elena Meiser, Alexandra Alles, Samuel Selter, Marco Molz, Amr Gomaa,
and Guillermo Reyes. 2022. In-Vehicle Interface Adaptation to Environment-
Induced Cognitive Workload. In 14th International Conference on Automotive
User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications (AutomotiveUI ’22 Ad-
junct), September 17–20, 2022, Seoul, Republic of Korea. ACM, New York, NY,
USA, 4 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3544999.3552533
1 INTRODUCTION
Driving is one of the most complex everyday tasks, involving sev-
eral visual and auditory mental subtasks [
5
]. Driving environment
AutomotiveUI ’22 Adjunct, September 17–20, 2022, Seoul, Republic of Korea
©2022 Copyright held by the owner/author(s).
This is the author’s version of the work. It is posted here for your personal use.
Not for redistribution. The denitive Version of Record was published in 14th In-
ternational Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Appli-
cations (AutomotiveUI ’22 Adjunct), September 17–20, 2022, Seoul, Republic of Korea,
https://doi.org/10.1145/3544999.3552533.
complexity, in terms of visual complexity and vehicle control di-
culty, aect mental workload (MWL) [
5
,
19
]. MWL is an interaction
of task demands, other environmental factors, and human charac-
teristics [
8
,
17
] and refers to the fact, that drivers need to expend
mental eort to maintain a safe driving behavior [
2
]. High MWL, in
particular overload, is associated with more driving mistakes and
trac accidents [
13
]. Besides decrements in performance, MWL
can also be assessed by physiological measurements like heart rate
(HR) and heart rate variability (HRV) [
3
,
6
]. Those can be easily
acquired while driving with non-invasive tools and can be used to
classify the current MWL level [
4
,
6
]. In the last few decades, in-
vehicle human-machine interfaces (HMI) have become increasingly
advanced. They generally have a great impact on the relationship
between the driving task and MWL [
7
]. On one hand, they can
add comfort to the driving task or even aid in its execution, e.g.
giving directions or warnings [
18
]. On the other hand, they can
also be a source of distraction or additional task load, e.g., giving
too much information [
20
]. In the rst case, HMIs can help to re-
duce the MWL of the driver while in the latter case they add MWL,
which could lead to driving mistakes or even accidents. Adapting
the HMI to the current MWL of the driver or the diculty of the
driving environment could help reduce the MWL and prevent a
mental overload [
15
]. This can be implemented by reducing the
information available on the display with rising MWL [
12
]. Since
this information reduction equals a change on the display, it could
also be possible that drivers nd that change itself distracting or
irritating. In this study, we wanted to test if adapting the HMI to a
dicult driving environment reduces MWL compared to a static
display that keeps the available information constant. We measured
MWL physiologically via HR and HRV as well as behaviorally via
driving performance. Additionally, we assessed secondary task per-
formance by letting participants interact with the HMI while driv-
ing. Since user experience (UX) of in-vehicle HMIs is an important
aspect, we collected UX data via a questionnaire.
arXiv:2210.11271v1 [cs.HC] 20 Oct 2022