EAGER: Enhancing Mobile Device Users' Levels of Situational Awareness through Tactile Feedback

在这个项目中，PI将探索一种新的方法，允许个人在从事眼睛被占用的任务时监视其更广泛的环境中的潜在障碍和威胁。 具体而言，他将重点关注移动终端用户，这些用户经常在走动时执行视觉要求高的任务，例如撰写和阅读文本消息，因此他们可能无法注意到行人的存在，接近的车辆交通或他们有可能遇到的其他物体。 PI的方法是通过头戴式接口提供触觉反馈，以便传达障碍物的存在。 虽然态势感知技术已被设计用于帮助流动用户，但警报通常使用视觉或听觉反馈来呈现。 但是，如果用户参与移动的任务，则可能花费宝贵的时间来识别图形指示符的存在，而听觉警报可能被环境声音掩盖，使得用户错过重要提示。 PI认为，当用户的其他感官被阻挡或限制时，触觉反馈提供了相当大的优势，并且触觉警报可以在不引起他人注意的情况下谨慎地呈现。 为了检验这些假设，PI将进行一系列研究，以确定是否可以设计有效支持用户做出知情决策的触觉提示。 项目成果将包括头戴式界面原型的设计，使用物体识别和基于传感器的技术来跟踪用户附近的障碍物，沿着创新的触觉界面设计指南。 更广泛的影响：这项研究将推进我们的理解与态势感知移动终端用户之间的问题，它也将有助于身体的知识呈现触觉反馈的位置上的头部（一个领域仍处于起步阶段）。 开发触觉图标库来传达诸如障碍物的数量、它们的位置以及它们与用户的接近度等概念，将在不同的领域中得到应用。

In this project the PI will explore a novel approach to allowing individuals to monitor their wider environment for potential obstacles and threats while engaged in a task where the eyes are occupied. Specifically, he will focus on mobile device users, who often perform visually-demanding tasks such as composing and reading text messages while ambulatory, so that they may fail to notice the presence of pedestrians, approaching vehicular traffic or other objects which they are at risk of encountering. The PI's approach is to present tactile feedback via a head-mounted interface in order to communicate the presence of obstacles. While situational awareness technologies have been designed to assist ambulatory users, alerts are often presented using visual or auditory feedback. But if the user is engaged with a mobile task precious time may be taken to identify the presence of graphical indicators, whereas auditory alerts may be masked by environmental sounds to that the user misses vital cues. The PI argues that tactile feedback offers considerable advantages when the user's other senses are blocked or restricted, and there is the additional benefit that tactile alerts can be presented discreetly without drawing attention by others. To test these hypotheses, the PI will conduct a sequence of studies to determine whether it is possible to design tactile cues that are effective in supporting informed decisions by the user. Project outcomes will include design of a head-mounted interface prototype using object-recognition and sensor-based technologies to track obstacles in the user's vicinity, along with innovative tactile interface design guidelines. Broader Impacts: This research will advance our understanding of issues relating to situational awareness among mobile device users, and it will also contribute to the body of knowledge on presenting tactile feedback to locations on the head (a field still in its infancy). The development of a library of tactile icons to convey concepts such as the number of obstacles, their location, and their proximity to the user, will have application across diverse domains.