Rightward attentional bias in windshield displays: Implication towards external human machine interfaces for self-driving cars

The current paper describes research, examining the daytime lighting requirements for windshield based human machine interface (HMI) components of self-driving cars or highly autonomous vehicles (HAVs). The results of this study showed a significant rightward attentional bias in the detection of amber LEDs at low luminosity levels. The rightward bias persists at different viewing angles. However, this bias is absent for white LEDs. These results support the Saliency-Effort-Expectancy-Value (SEEV) model [12] of selective attention. These results highlight that priority should be given to the driver side for placement of critical external HMI components, especially those with lower perceptual saliency.