Place in the World or Place on the Screen? Investigating the Effects of Augmented Reality Head -Up Display User Interfaces on Drivers’ Spatial Knowledge Acquisition and Glance Behavior

When navigating via car, developing robust mental representations (spatial knowledge) of the environment is crucial in situations where technology fails, or we need to find locations not included in a navigation system’s database. In this work, we present a study that examines how screen-relative and world-relative augmented reality (AR) head-up display interfaces affect drivers’ glance behavior and spatial knowledge acquisition. Results showed that both AR interfaces have similar impact on the levels of spatial knowledge acquired. However, eye-tracking analyses showed fundamental differences in the way participants visually interacted with different AR interfaces; with conformal-graphics demanding more visual attention from drivers.