A study on recognition of in-car visual information

This paper deals with a study on in-car visual information provided to drivers. Namba (1983) proposes a method to define the amount of displayed information by converting the contents of a picture into letters and objects and counting their number. The authors applied this method to evaluate in-car visual information systems, and the results of their study conformed with the conventional evaluation method which analyzes the display screen visibility by measuring the time to glance at the display. This suggests that the driver selectively chooses information necessary to accomplish his own task, i.e., determining the shortest way to the destination, rather than recognizing all the information displayed. This paper introduces Namba´s report, the proper method for evaluating the in-car visual information system, and the result of the authors´ study