During the spring of 2002, Operator Performance Laboratory (OPL) conducted a field experiment to investigate unsuspected driver eye movement behaviors under oncoming glare induced by vehicles equipped with Tungsten-Halogen (TH) and High Intensity Discharge (HID) headlamps in nighttime driving conditions. The results of this field experiment are discussed in the paper. Subjects' eye movement behaviors were recorded on digital videotapes and onto ASCII data files via the equipment in an instrumented vehicle. This study was conducted as a pilot study to determine if, in fact, drivers tend to look at the HID headlamps more often than they do at TH headlamps. There were no confederate vehicles with TH headlamps, so the TH eye fixation data were obtained for non-confederate vehicles arbitrarily chosen among the oncoming vehicle fleet at the same encounter sites. We observed a statistically significant increase in the number of eye fixations at each encounter site for the confederate HID headlamps as compared to the non-confederate TH headlamps. The average eye fixation durations were not statistically different. We believe that the higher numbers of eye fixations exacerbate the complaints due to HID headlamp glare, especially when coupled with the effect of typically higher luminous intensities of such headlamps. The HID headlamps seemed to draw more driver attention and consequential direct eye fixations, which may cause excessive glare. The more frequent looks may be attributed to various factors such as the spectral properties and/or the intensity. The novelty effect may also be attributed in part to the spectral properties, and may therefore gradually diminish. Further research will explore the effects of spectral and photometric properties of different HID and TH headlamps with similar beam patterns on driver eye movement behaviors. Disabling and discomforting effects of these different headlamps will also be explored.
Effects of high intensity discharge and tungsten-halogen headlamp glare on on driver looking behavior
Auswirkung der von leuchtstarken Gasentladungsscheinwerfern und von Wolfram-Halogenscheinwerfern verursachten Blendung auf das Fahrersehverhalten
2003
14 Seiten, 9 Bilder
Conference paper
English
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