Safe driving through unsafe automation?: How does the feedback on automation uncertainty perform when taking control from partially / highly automated driving?

Hochautomatisiertes Fahren erfordert an Systemgrenzen die Kontrollübernahme durch den Fahrer. In der Literatur werden dafür Übernahmezeiten von im Schnitt 8 Sekunden berichtet. Eine 8sekündige Vorhersage kann im Kontext hochveränderlicher Fahrsituationen einerseits und dem Bestreben tatsächlich alle möglichen Systemgrenzen abdecken zu können andererseits, zu häufigen „falschen Alarmen“ führen, indem sich die Situation so entwickelt, dass gar kein Fahrereingriff nötig ist. Dies kann zu einem Cry Wolf Effekt und zu einem generellen Missvertrauen in die Automation führen. Basierend auf der Lerntheorie der Evidenzevaluation wird angenommen, dass über die Gestaltung einer Rückmeldung Einfluss auf die Zusammenhangshypothese über die Beziehung zwischen Alarm und möglicher Folge genommen werden kann. Kann man die Zusammenhangshypothese so gestalten, dass sie initial beide Konsequenzen, das Erreichen einer Systemgrenze aber auch deren Ausbleiben, im Konzept vorsieht, besteht die Möglichkeit einen Cry Wolf Effekt zu minimieren. Die Rückmeldung von Automationsunsicherheit scheint geeignet genau eine solche Zusammenhangshypothese zu bilden. Dies wurde in 3 Fahrsimulatorstudien in einem einfachen Fahrsimulator überprüft. Dazu wurde ein Konditionierungsparadigma genutzt. In diesem erlebten Versuchspersonen während der Fahrt mit einer Automationsunterstützung der Längs- und Querführung wiederholt Situationen, in denen Alarme geäußert wurden, die Automation aber dennoch situationsangemessen reagierte. Durch Variation der Häufigkeit der erlebten falschen Alarme wurde ein Cry Wolf Effekt evoziert. Es wurden folgende Parameter variiert. Die Art der Rückmeldungsgestaltung vor allem Unsicherheitsrückmeldung und konventionell gestaltete Alarme, die Häufigkeit der erlebten falschen Alarme, der Einfluss positiver Evidenz, also tatsächlicher Automationsfehler nach einem Alarm. Zur Messung des Cry Wolf Effektes wurden die Kontrollierbarkeit eines tatsächlichen Automationsfehlers, die Verteilung der Aufmerksamkeit zwischen Fahr- und einer Nebenaufgabe in Rückmeldungssituationen und das erlebte Vertrauen in die Automation genutzt. Es zeigte sich, dass eine Unsicherheitsrückmeldung nicht resistent, aber robuster gegenüber einem Cry Wolf Effekt ist als konventionell gestaltete Übernahmeaufforderungen. Auch situationsspezifische Einflussfaktoren spielen eine Rolle. Eine Rückmeldung vor einem Automationsfehler kann zudem das Entstehen von Misstrauen in die Automation verringern.Highly automated driving requires the driver to take control at system limits. In the literature, takeover times of an average of 8 seconds are reported. An 8-second forecast in the context of highly variable driving situations on the one hand and the endeavor to actually cover all possible system limits on the other hand can lead to frequent "false alarms" because the situation develops in such a way that no driver intervention is necessary. This can lead to a cry wolf effect and general mistrust in automation. Based on the learning theory of evidence evaluation, it is assumed that the design of a feedback can influence the hypothesis of the relationship between alarm and possible consequence. If the correlation hypothesis can be designed in such a way that multiple outcomes of an alarm the reaching of a system limit on the one hand and the absence thereof on the other hand are possible, there is the possibility of minimizing a Cry Wolf effect. The feedback from automation uncertainty seems suitable to form precisely such a correlation hypothesis. This was verified in 3 studies in a simple driving simulator. A conditioning paradigm was used for this. In this, test persons repeatedly experienced situations during the journey with automation support for the longitudinal and lateral guidance in which alarms were issued, but the automation nevertheless reacted appropriately to the situation. A cry wolf effect was evoked by varying the frequency of false alarms experienced. The following parameters were varied. The type of feedback design, especially uncertainty feedback and conventionally designed alarms, the frequency of false alarms experienced, the influence of positive evidence, i.e. actual automation errors after an alarm. To measure the Cry Wolf effect, the controllability of an actual automation error, the distribution of attention between driving and a secondary task in feedback situations and the trust experienced in the automation were used. It turned out that an uncertainty feedback is not resistant, but more robust to a Cry Wolf effect than conventionally designed takeover requests. Situation-specific influencing factors also play a role. A feedback before an automation error can also reduce the emergence of distrust in the automation

The theater-system technique: agile designing and testing of system behavior and interaction, applied to highly automated vehicles

In this paper, the theater-system technique, a method for agile designing and testing of system behavior and interaction concepts is described. The technique is based on the Wizard-of-Oz approach, originally used for emulating automated speech recognition, and is extended towards an interactive, user-centered design technique. The paper describes the design process using the theater-system technique, the technical build-up of the theater-system, and an application of the technique: the design of a haptic-multimodal interaction strategy for highly automated vehicles. The use of the theater-system in the design process is manifold: It is used for the concrete design work of the design team, for the assessment of user expectations as well as for early usability assessments, extending the principles of user-centered design towards a dynamically balanced design

Why not? – Communicating stochastic information by use of unsorted frequency pictograms – a randomised controlled trial

Objective: Statistical health risk information has been proven confusing and difficult to understand. While existing research indicates that presenting risk information in frequency formats is superior to relative risk and probability formats, the optimal design of frequency formats is still unclear. The aim of this study was to compare presentation of multi-figure pictographs in consecutive and random arrangements regarding accuracy in perception and vulnerability for cognitive bias

Effect of informed consent on patient characteristics in a stroke thrombolysis trial

Objective: To determine whether the manner of consent, i.e., informed consent by patients themselves or informed consent by proxy, affects clinical characteristics of samples of acute stroke patients enrolled in clinical trials. Methods: We analyzed the manner of obtaining informed consent in the first 1,005 patients from WAKE-UP, an investigator-initiated, randomized, placebo-controlled trial of MRI-based thrombolysis in stroke patients with unknown time of symptom onset running in 6 European countries. Patients providing informed consent by themselves were compared with patients enrolled by proxy consent. Baseline clinical measures were compared between groups. Results: In 359 (35.7%) patients, informed consent was by proxy. Patients with proxy consent were older (median 71 vs 66 years, p < 0.0001) and had a higher frequency of arterial hypertension (58.2% vs 43.4%, p < 0.0001). They showed higher scores on the NIH Stroke Scale (median 11 vs 5, p < 0.0001) and more frequently aphasia (73.7% vs 20.0%, p < 0.0001). The rate of proxy consent varied among countries (p < 0.0001), ranging from 77.1% in Spain to 1.2% in Denmark. Conclusions: Patients recruited by proxy consent were older, had more severe strokes, and had higher prevalence of aphasia than those with capacity to give personal consent. Variations in the manner of consent across countries may influence trial results. Clinicaltrials.gov and Clinicaltrialsregister.eu identifiers: NCT01525290 (clinicaltrials.gov); 2011-005906-32 (clinicaltrialsregister.eu)

Recognition of and treatment recommendations for oligometastatic disease in multidisciplinary tumor boards

BACKGROUND AND INTRODUCTION Growing evidence supports a combined modality treatment strategy for patients with oligometastatic disease. However, lack of phase III trial data and uncertainties around patient selection highlight the importance of multidisciplinary tumor boards (MDT) in therapeutic decision-making. This study aimed to analyze the recognition of and treatment recommendations for oligometastatic patients by MDTs at a large comprehensive cancer center in order to better understand current treatment patterns of oligometastasis. MATERIALS AND METHODS For this retrospective single-center cross-sectional study, oligometastatic patients were identified by screening oncological PET and concurrent brain MRI scans conducted at our center in 2020. MDT discussions and recommendations within four weeks of the imaging diagnosis of oligometastasis were analyzed. Logistic regression analysis was used to identify predictors for the addition of local therapy to standard-of-care. RESULTS A total of 787 oligometastatic cases were identified. Lung cancer and mesothelioma, skin cancer, and prostate cancer were the most common histologies with 231 (29 %), 160 (20 %), and 84 (11 %) cases, respectively. Almost half of the cases (46 %) had one distant metastasis on imaging only. More than half (56 %) of all oligometastatic cases were discussed at an MDT. In 47 % of cases, for which a therapeutic recommendation was reached in an MDT, local therapy was part of the therapeutic strategy. On logistic regression analysis, oligometastatic skin cancer was significantly associated with a recommendation for local therapy (p < 0.05), whereas the number of oligometastases was not (p = 0.202). CONCLUSION More than half of oligometastatic cases were discussed in MDTs, of which more than every second received a recommendation including the addition of local therapy. This frequency of MDT use underscores the importance of multidisciplinary decision-making, yet efforts should be increased to standardize reporting and use standard nomenclature on oligometastasis in MDTs to better frame multidisciplinary discussion

Neurocalcin Delta Suppression Protects against Spinal Muscular Atrophy in Humans and across Species by Restoring Impaired Endocytosis

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of the following article: Riessland et al., 'Neurocalcin Delta Suppression Protects against Spinal Muscular Atrophy in Humans and across Species by Restoring Impaired Endocytosis', The American Journal of Human Genetics, Vol. 100 (2): 297-315, first published online 26 January 2017. The final, published version is available online at doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ajhg.2017.01.005 © 2017 American Society of Human Genetics.Homozygous SMN1 loss causes spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), the most common lethal genetic childhood motor neuron disease. SMN1 encodes SMN, a ubiquitous housekeeping protein, which makes the primarily motor neuron-specific phenotype rather unexpected. SMA-affected individuals harbor low SMN expression from one to six SMN2 copies, which is insufficient to functionally compensate for SMN1 loss. However, rarely individuals with homozygous absence of SMN1 and only three to four SMN2 copies are fully asymptomatic, suggesting protection through genetic modifier(s). Previously, we identified plastin 3 (PLS3) overexpression as an SMA protective modifier in humans and showed that SMN deficit impairs endocytosis, which is rescued by elevated PLS3 levels. Here, we identify reduction of the neuronal calcium sensor Neurocalcin delta (NCALD) as a protective SMA modifier in five asymptomatic SMN1-deleted individuals carrying only four SMN2 copies. We demonstrate that NCALD is a Ca(2+)-dependent negative regulator of endocytosis, as NCALD knockdown improves endocytosis in SMA models and ameliorates pharmacologically induced endocytosis defects in zebrafish. Importantly, NCALD knockdown effectively ameliorates SMA-associated pathological defects across species, including worm, zebrafish, and mouse. In conclusion, our study identifies a previously unknown protective SMA modifier in humans, demonstrates modifier impact in three different SMA animal models, and suggests a potential combinatorial therapeutic strategy to efficiently treat SMA. Since both protective modifiers restore endocytosis, our results confirm that endocytosis is a major cellular mechanism perturbed in SMA and emphasize the power of protective modifiers for understanding disease mechanism and developing therapies.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Cooperative Control and Active Interfaces for Vehicle Assitsance and Automation

Enabled by scientific, technological and societal progress, and pulled by human demands, more and more aspects of our life can be assisted or automated by technical artefacts. One example is the transportation domain, where in the sky commercial aircraft are flying highly automated most of the times and where on the roads a gradual revolution takes place towards assisted, highly automated or even fully automated cars and trucks. Automobiles and mobility are changing gradually towards intelligent vehicles embedded in an integrated, intelligent transportation system. On the one hand, assistance and automation can have benefits like higher safety, lower workload, or a special fascination of use. On the other hand, assistance and automation come with a couple of challenges especially regarding the interplay between the driver and the assistance/automation. Some of these challenges can be addressed with a close coupling of assistance/automation and the driver, which leads to a shared or cooperative control of the vehicle. An early example of cooperative control in a car is the Lane Keeping Assistant System LKAS, where the automation delivers about 80% of the force required to keep the vehicle on the road, while the driver has to provide the missing 20% and therefore stays in the loop. A combination of LKAS and ACC (Adaptive Cruise Control) leads to highly automated driving, one level of automation on the automation spectrum between manual and fully automated driving. A close coupling between automation and driver can be achieved with active interfaces, e.g. force feedback steering wheels like in the LKAS or active sidesticks. After a brief overview on active interface technology, a prototype system developed in the H-Mode project by NASA, DLR and TU-Munich, and first data gained in driving simulators will be described

Using human-compatible reference values in design of cooperative dynamic human-machine systems

This is a conceptual paper about design of cognitive systems. The design of cooperative dynamic human-machine systems, such as driver assistance systems within a vehicle being part of the traffic, is a challenging task. The result has to be easily comprehensible for the user, although the overall system complexity might be rather high. Firstly, the driver assistance systems are able to perform a complex but partially hidden behavior. An Adaptive Cruise Control system (ACC), for example, can perceive relevant aspects of the current traffic situation and can decide autonomously about the longitudinal maneuver, such as approaching or maintaining speed. In parallel, it performs singular actions, such as deceleration to avoid collisions. However, the matching of technical and design constraints of the machine behavior and natural human behavior can be difficult, particularly in time- and safety-critical situations, for instance during emergency braking or evading. And secondly, the overall system complexity increases caused by the high number of different assistance systems already on the market. In some cases they are not well integrated and the driver has to interact with each of them separately. To design well usable cooperative dynamic human-machine systems and interaction, a usability improving and system integrating approach is required. In this paper, we describe such an approach based on the use of human-compatible reference values. The main reference value that we use in the design of driver assistance systems is named ‘action tension’. We show exemplary how such a value can be derived from well-known and accepted scientific concepts, how it can be operationalized and evaluated within a usability assessment and how it can be used in the design of an integrated driver assistance system in case of an approach, brake and evade driving scenario

Auswirkungen hoher Fahrzeugautomatisierung auf die visuelle Aufmerksamkeitsressource und die Übernahmefähigkeit bei Automationsausfall

Mit dem Ziel den Fahrzeugverkehr effizienter und sicherer zu machen, werden im Automobilbereich zunehmend über Assistenz hinausgehende Unterstützungs- und Automationskonzepte entwickelt und untersucht. Eine solche Automation kann dabei wesentliche Anteile der Fahrzeugführung übernehmen, oder im Extremfall die Fahrzeugführung vollständig selbst ausführen. Ein Effekt von hoher Automatisierung kann sein, dass normalerweise durch die Fahrzeugführung gebundene Aufmerksamkeitsanteile frei werden und anderen Aufgaben als der Fahraufgabe gewidmet werden. Einerseits kann die Entbindung von Aufmerksamkeit von der Fahraufgabe zu einer erheblichen Verminderung des Situationsbewusstseins des Fahrers führen. Dies ist dann problematisch, wenn Situationen auftreten für die die Automation nicht ausgelegt ist, oder in denen sie gar ausfällt und der Fahrer plötzlich die Fahrzeugkontrolle übernehmen muss. Andererseits kann dies zu erhöhter Sicherheit beitragen, da der Fahrer oft durchaus von der Fahraufgabe abgelenkt sein kann, ohne die Fahrsicherheit zu gefährden. In dieser Diplomarbeit wurde die Auswirkung unterschiedlich hoher Automationsanteile an der Fahrzeugkontrolle auf die visuelle Aufmerksamkeitsverteilung und die Auswirkung auf die Reaktionsfähigkeit bei einem plötzlichen Automationsausfall untersucht. Für die Studie wurde ein generischer Fahrsimulator des Instituts für Verkehrssystemtechnik am DLR Braunschweig genutzt. Im ersten Teil wurde experimentell betrachtet, ob eine Steigerung der Anteile einer Automation an der Fahraufgabe, entsprechend längere Blickabwendungen von der primären Fahraufgabe zur Folge hat. Dazu wurde eine kopfgestützte Blickrichtungsmessung und eine generische Zweitaufgabe genutzt. Es zeigte sich, dass mit ansteigendem Automationsanteil zunehmend mehr visuelle Ressourcen frei werden, die für die Bearbeitung von Zweitaufgaben genutzt werden konnten. In einem zweiten Untersuchungsteil wurde explorativ, die Reaktion des Fahrers auf einen Ausfall der Automation untersucht. Dabei wurden ein hochautomatisiertes Fahren sowie eine Vollautomation verglichen. Während des hochautomatisierten Fahrens war der Fahrer leicht in die Fahraufgabe involviert und musste daher nur geringe Eingriffe in die Fahrzeugführung vornehmen. Zudem wurden ihm direkt am Stellteil, über haptisches Feedback, Automations- und Streckeninformationen übermittelt. Während des vollautomatisierten Fahrens war der Fahrer dagegen ganz von der Fahrzeugführung entbunden. Die Hypothese war, dass das hochautomatisierte Fahren im Vergleich zum vollautomatisierten Fahren im Fall eines Automationsausfalls eine schnellere Übernahme der Fahrzeugsteuerung durch den Fahrer ermöglicht. Auf den ersten Blick zeigte sich hier kein signifikanter Effekt. Wurde jedoch zusätzlich zur Reaktionszeit noch der Geschwindigkeitsunterschied zwischen der hohen Automation und der Vollautomation berücksichtigt, so zeigte sich eine deutlichere Tendenz in Richtung eines Unterschiedes zugunsten der hohen Automatisierung. Mögliche Erklärungen der beobachteten Effekte werden im Diskussionsteil behandelt. Im Letzten Abschnitt wird auf Grundlage der Ergebnisse ein Ausblick auf mögliche Folgenuntersuchungen geliefert