Adaptive car lighting systems and visual attention

Cooperating with the headlamp developer and manufacturer ZKW Group GmbH we investigate the influence of light-induced dynamics caused by adaptive driving beams on eye movements, visual attention, perception, and driving behavior.

Adaptive driving beams are sophisticated headlamp systems which adjust the light beam to the driving situation to provide an optimally illuminated field of view for the driver without glaring other road users. These adjustments cause the light beam to change its form, and we investigate the influence of these dynamics.

We first exhaustively reviewed studies which used eye tracking during real-world night driving (Grüner & Ansorge, 2017). Then we conducted a pilot study, where we found that light-induced dynamics attracted gazes. Based on this project, we received funding for a follow-up project (EdyLidA).