Analysis of Driver Gaze and Attention to Traffic Signs

A driver’s actions and intent can be factors in enabling advance driver assistance systems (ADASs) to assist drivers and avoid accidents. A driver’s gaze can provide insight into the driver’s intent or awareness of situations. Knowing that a driver gazed at a traffic sign or missed a traffic could provide indications of whether the driver is alert to impending changes in the driving environment, such as curves and stop signs. For ADASs to determine the importance of a driver seeing or missing a sign, it is important to understand the driving environment and situation. A first step is to understand what signs drivers do see or miss while driving. This contribution presents the results of analyzing driving sequences to assess traffic signs that drivers may or may not have gazed upon. The results suggest that drivers may miss 20% of traffic signs though the percentage varies depending on the type of sign. The analysis uses image sequences of the driving environment and gazes data captured during driving. The methods used in our analysis included determining whether a driver’s gaze has fallen on the image of a traffic sign or not and subsequently determining signs missed during driving. The methods presented can be useful in other scenarios involving the analysis of driver gaze and have implications for the design of future ADASs and for understanding of driver gaze and awareness.