Still fit to drive? – How car sickness affects takeover and driving performance

In automated driving the driver is likely to experience car sickness when not paying attention to the road. Considering previous findings of cognitive performance decrements due to motion sickness, and the fact that driving demands cognitive resources, the aim of this study was to understand if and how car sickness affects takeover and subsequent driving performance. N = 33 participants took part in this test-track study with a wizard-of-Oz vehicle, including a car sickness condition and a control condition without experiencing car sickness in randomised order. In both conditions four takeover requests were triggered, after which participants performed four different driving tasks. Subjective measures of car sickness, criticality, mental workload, and performance were recorded, as well as objective performance and driving measures. Results of the subjective data showed that takeovers and driving with car sickness were perceived as significantly more critical and demanding compared to without, and that most participants felt impaired by car sickness while driving. These results will be validated with the objective data.