The development of new and sophisticated in-car systems fostered by technical innovation demands careful evaluation of these systems. Driving simulation is an important tool for this kind of evaluation. In-depth knowledge of the driving simulator as a tool as well as of measures recorded and calculated while using the simulator is needed to improve new driver information systems or similar devices during the development process. For this reason, two experiments were conducted to investigate the sensitivity of lane keeping and steering measures. Participants were exposed to varying fields of view as well as cognitive and visual-motor secondary tasks.
The results yielded by the two experiments were quite consistent. All used measures are more sensitive to a visual-motor secondary task and the reduction of the peripheral field of view than to a cognitive secondary task. Out of the various steering measures the “High Frequency Component of Steering Wheel Angle” and the “Steering Wheel Reversal Rate” showed the best results. “Time to Line Crossing” and the “Standard Deviation of Lateral Position” were the most sensitive of the lane keeping measures. Since the level of difficulty in implementing and analyzing the examined measures differs widely these results can help to choose suitable measures in an economic manner. Analyses showed that a harmonization process is needed with regard to the various calculation methods of some of the measures.
Another topic was subjects’ level of experience with the driving simulator. We found that only a short period of training was needed to be perfectly prepared for this kind of experiment. Interpretation of the results is limited to male persons between the age of 20 to 36 years.