Could You Please...? Investigating Cooperation In The Car

In this paper, we present the results of a study on the perception of driver and passenger when cooperating in the car. An increased feeling of control when handing over responsibility for secondary tasks to the passengers might form a basis for the acceptance of future natural cooperative in-car information systems. Many studies have revealed the potential of involving accompanying passengers, but so far, their ability to support the driver has not been applied practically. We have developed a system to support driver-passenger cooperation and investigated the effect on perceived control and involvement. An application to search for points of interest (POI) was implemented and tested in a user study. Besides the POI task, the driver had to perform a distraction task to simulate a dual task load. We found that, depending on the person who is executing the task (driver or passenger), the respective person feels more involved in the situation. However, the level of control over the situation is increased significantly for both persons when the passenger is supporting the driver by performing the task. Overall, we provide a new design space for interaction areas in the car and highlight the potential passengers offer to reduce driver’s load and thus increase driving safety.