Ears Outside the Car: Evaluation of Binaural Vehicular Sounds and Visual Animations as Driver's Blind Spot Indicators

Driving demands a significant amount of visual attention, which may impair drivers’ ability to detect and react to visual information such as blind spot warnings. This online pilot study (N = 242) evaluated the perception of binaural auditory cues and concurrent visual animations about overtaking vehicles designed to improve drivers’ situational awareness. The results showed that the spatial direction of the sounds was perceived in a high degree of precision, and they were rated as pleasant and natural sounding. Spatial congruency between the two information modalities was accurately perceived with visualizations rated as significantly more reliable blind spot indicators than sounds. The results suggest that spatial direction of binaural sounds can be consistently interpreted both alone and in tandem with visualizations in the given driving scenario. Binaural sounds could enhance drivers’ situational awareness in an eyes-free way to anticipate overtaking vehicles already before they trigger visual blind spot warnings.