Category Archives: workshop

Developing Partnership and Advancing Driving Research – Workshop at Michigan Tech

Myounghoon “Philart” Jeon

Last week I attended the Developing Partnership and Advancing Driving Research workshop at Michigan Tech. The workshop was organized by Myounghoon “Philart” Jeon. Philart is Assistant Professor at Michigan Tech with appointments in two departments:  Computer Science, and Cognitive and Learning Sciences. He is also the director of the Mind Music Machine (tri-M) Lab.

PhD student Steven Landry discusses motion sonification and the display wall at the tri-M lab

(Academic) speed dating at the workshop

The workshop brought together researchers interested in driving research: Bruce Walker (Georgia Tech) provided an overview of the tools different groups might use in driving research, and he also elaborated on his work with audio interactions. Andreas Riener (Johannes Kepler University Linz) spoke about topics related to autonomous vehicles. Collin Castle (Michigan DOT) discussed the use of connected vehicle technologies in Michigan DOT. I introduced some of our work with eye tracking in the UNH driving simulator. I also participated in my first speed dating session – the academic kind 😉

You can see more photos from the event on Flickr.

Impressions from the 2013 FHWA workshop on utilizing various data sources for research

Last week I participated in the work of a workshop organized by the FHWA which explored utilizing various data sources for surface transportation human factors research. Here are some impressions from the workshop.

Bicycles are cool
Marco Dozza explores the use of bicycles and has a fleet of instrumented bikes. I really liked the elegance of his approach.

We can use technology to warn pedestrians (even when they have headphones)
Toru Hagiwara and Hidekatsu Hamaoka discussed research on protecting pedestrians in crosswalks. I can relate to this: ever since I started walking with kids, I’m sorely aware of the dangers of crosswalks.

We need a variety of data sources
Michael Manser, Sue Chrysler, John Lee and Linda Boyle gave presentations on a variety of data sources they’ve used: from laboratory studies to naturalistic driving data. They all agree that there’s a need to combine results from different data sources in order to find solutions to human factors problems. I was really impressed with John Lee’s discussion of the use of Twitter to understand traffic.

Panel discussions can be informative…
… when you have a skilled moderator (Don Fisher) and engaged participants (the presenters listed above). Don’s theme for the discussion (the 3 Cs): our data should be comprehensive and complementary, but it is sometimes also contradictory. The discussion brought up ideas such as:

  • there’s a need for standardization (see Paul Green‘s work on SAE J2944 [1]);
  • Linda Boyle points out that there’s a fourth C: confusion;
  • Sue Chrysler points out that discussions about data often focus on the “how?” (how can we collect, process, interpret data?). But we need to first resolve the “why?” and “what?” questions. I really appreciated this comment, as it is the central point I make in my ECE 900 course.

Thanks to FHWA’s David Yang for hosting the workshop – it was informative and fun. See my pictures from the workshop on Flickr.

References

[1] Paul Green, “Standard Definitions for Driving Measures and Statistics: Overview and Status of Recommended Practice J2944,” AutomotiveUI 2013

 

CLW 2012 to be held at AutomotiveUI 2012

The Cognitive Load and In-Vehicle Human-Machine Interaction workshop (CLW 2012) will be held on October 17, at AutomotiveUI 2012. The workshop will be one of six workshops at the conference. Along with the Automotive Natural User Interfaces workshop, CLW 2012 is now in its second year, and hopefully to be established as a permanent workshop at the conference series.

2011 Cognitive Load and In-Vehicle Human-Machine Interaction workshop

I’m thrilled to announce the 2011 Cognitive Load and In-Vehicle Human-Machine Interaction workshop (CLW 2011) to be held at AutomotiveUI 2011 in Salzburg, Austria. I’m co-organizing the workshop with Peter Heeman, Tim Paek, Tom Miller, Paul Green, Ivan Tashev, Peter Froehlich, Bryan Reimer, Shamsi Iqbal and Dagmar Kern. 

Why have this workshop? Interactions with in-vehicle electronic devices can interfere with the primary task of driving. The concept of cognitive load helps us understand the extent to which these interactions interfere with the driving task and how this interference can be mitigated. While research results on in-vehicle cognitive load are frequently presented at automotive research conferences and in related journals, so far no dedicated forum is available for focused discussions on this topic. This workshop aims to fill that void.

Submissions to the workshop are due October 17. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

– Cognitive load estimation in the laboratory,
– Cognitive load estimation on the road,
– Sensing technologies for cognitive load estimation,
– Algorithms for cognitive load estimation,
– Performance measures of cognitive load,
– Physiological measures of cognitive load,
– Visual measures of cognitive load,
– Subjective measures of cognitive load,
– Methods for benchmarking cognitive load,
– Cognitive load of driving,
– Cognitive overload and cognitive underload,
– Approaches to cognitive load management inspired by human-human interactions.

For a detailed description of workshop goals take a look at the call for papers.

Presentation at the 2011 Emergency Responders Workshop

Yesterday I participated in the work of the 2011 Emergency Responders Workshop (pdf) organized by WisDOT, CVTA and GLTEI. The workshop had two major goals. One was to provide a sampling of state-of-the-art technologies used by emergency responders. The other was to begin charting a path toward developing advanced technologies. Participants from emergency responder agencies, industry and academia discussed their vision for future technologies as well as barriers to progress.

My presentation focused on pervasive (or ubiquitous) computing for law enforcement. I encouraged participants to ask the following question:

“What should be the focus of R&D efforts targeting percom technologies for emergency responders?”

CVTA President Scott McCormick (in picture below) and WisDOT’s John Corbin led the meeting superbly – thanks to both for including me in this effort.

For more pictures from the event visit Flickr.