When cooperation is needed: the effect of spatial and time distance and criticality on willingness to cooperate

AbstractIn the future, car-to-car communication and car-to-infrastructure communication will be a central part of automated driving experience. Cooperative interactive driving is seen as a promising approach, in which cars interact cooperatively with drivers and the environment. However, to ensure drivers ’ acceptance and their trust in such systems, it is important to understand the underlying mechanisms of human cooperation in traffic context. Therefore, this study investigated potential influencing parameters for cooperative behaviour in a lane change situation on a highway. As central influenci ng parameters the situation’s criticality and the distance in time and space to the driver asking for cooperation were manipulated. This was done by selecting appropriate levels for the time to collision (TTC) in conjunction with the variation of distances to other involved agents. In a video-base d experiment with the perspective of driving on the left lane, 43 participants (M = 23.2 years; SD = 4.26 years) had to decide if they would give way to a driver in the right lane situated behind a slower truck. The results showed that the willingness to cooperate was strongly influenced by aspects of the situation: the driver’s costs (operationalized by the distance in time and space to the driver asking for cooperation) and the criticality of the situation for the other driver. A large distance in time and space to the driver asking for cooperation and, therefore, low cos...
Source: Cognition, Technology and Work - Category: Information Technology Source Type: research