Hands-Free Siri Interactions Result in Highest Levels of Mental Distraction While Driving

[Lictor]

Well, driving is a dangerous activity. When you're driving, you should be driving full time - not diverting neurons on playing with tech toys, listening to audio books, texting or making phone calls.
If the idea of spending half an hour doing a single focussed task is too much for you, then driving is not for you... You can take public transports and have all that time for playing with your device with the risk of killing yourself or others...

 

[JerkyTruck]

some background info ...

I would like to point out that in no way does this research predict crash risk on a public road.

There is a whole class of research that observes drivers on the road in their NATURAL environment, in their own vehicle, and without an experimenter present (naturalistic driving data). The biggest project in this line of research is named the Strategic Highway Research Project 2 (SHRP funded by the government via the transportation research board) that has equipped 3000+ vehicles with an array of sensors and cameras to really get at the true causes of crashes. This project has observed approx. 1000 crashes 5000 near crashes and 5 Million miles of driving. There has been a driver distraction report published from a subset of this data (focusing on contributing factors of forward collisions). The publication can be read here ... http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/shrp2/SHRP2prepubS08AReport.pdf.
Most driving research does not use this kind of data because it is very expensive to collect, store, and analyze.

What this kind of data has repeatedly taught us is that any task where the driver does not have to take eyes of the forward road scene is not ASSOCIATED with a higher crash risk than just driving. Often times with naturalistic driving data you will observe tasks like talking on the phone are associated with less risk. Explanations for this is that drivers choose when to talk on the phone (in experiments participants are told when to perform a task) and drivers can make driving accommodations (i.e., stay in a single lane and keep a longer following distance). Effects of mental or cognitive distraction is not difficult to observe in the lab. For instance a participant may be less likely to respond to a red light in the side view mirror when doing mental math. But as mentioned, on the real road, drivers adjust their driving style to make up for negative effects of increased mental load. Furthermore, if our eyes are on the road, driving is a rather automated experience for us. We simply do not need to commit all our mental resources towards routine driving. We use our excess mental capacity to get lost in thought (we are all distracted drivers but manage to get home safe). Mental distraction does not seem to have a direct safety link.

Now I am not going to say that the driving behavior or a highly distracted person is not annoying but there is no direct public road evidence that a person on the phone is at greater risk of crashing (maybe just receiving hand gestures from other drivers).

Risk starts to ramp up when drivers take long single glances away from the forward road scene. Though, a glance does not have to long to contribute to a crash. Tasks like texting, dialing a phone, and searching for the phone are clearly associated with an increased level of crash risk. Though visually distracted drivers also change their driving behavior, it is much more difficult to respond to surprise events or maintain lane position than drivers talking on the phone but with their eyes on the road.

In regards to voice interactions with the vehicle, not a whole lot of road data has been analyzed yet. If I were to hypothesize ... in cases where the driver is asked to look at text, (for instance if you are trying to compose a message with your voice but you want to read your message before sending) then this kind of interaction will likely increase risk. If the interaction is purely auditory/vocal, there really is no direct public road data suggesting that it will be associated with an increased crash risk.

I am not an Apple employee

 

[doctor-don]

You shouldn't be using your phone in the car period. This is why I got rid of my smartphone 3 years ago. I honk at people at stoplights about 60% of the time, because they're busy 'being safe' by updating facebook while stopped, while the light's been green for 5 seconds already.

I look forward to the day when cell phones are banned completely from cars.

In several states - too bad not all states - you would be liable for a ticket for using your phone for ANYTHING while you are on the road. People who cannot wait till they get where they are going or pull off the road to answer or send a text or a phone call just don't have the necessary self-control. I would bet they would make more of an effort if the penalties and fines were higher for using those phones.

 

[jettredmont]

I would like a solution that filters important messages from spam. "Check out my latest cat photo" is not important while driving. But "I've just landed at terminal B, I'll be late" is important enough that Siri might read that out loud.

This is why I tell people that if they have something they want me to know when I stop the car, text me. If they have something they want me to know RIGHT THEN, (caps intentional) they should call me, or if they can not talk then text me then call and hang up (signal to pull over and read texts).

Works really well. Relies on the people sending you messages being reliable judges of what is an emergency and what is not, but at least amongst my circle of friends and family that hasn't been a problem.

 

[Lictor]

it is. as is a phone conversation. why? cognitive load is higher -- our brains were designed to communicate with a person face to face and take in many visual indicators -- read the recipient's body, scan the face for instant feedback to our message, evaluate and adjust, etc.

Moreover, you share context with a person that is in the car. That person will modulate his flow of information based on that shared context - he will pause or slow down if things get hectic on the road for instance and resume conversation when things are quiet. Likewise, if something dangerous happens on the road, he will show signs of alert or distress and that will snap back your attention to the road.

A person outside the car through a mobile, or even worse an electronic device, is oblivious to what's going on in your car. Worse, while you're engaged with that person, your brain is actively trying to recreate a shared context with that person - trying to draw a mental image of a face to face conversation. As a result, your brain is making a lot of efforts trying to make you forget that you're in a car. We're a social animal, we're wired to rank communication as a very high priority task.

 

[doctor-don]

I would like to point out that in no way does this research predict crash risk on a public road.

There is a whole class of research that observes drivers on the road in their NATURAL environment, in their own vehicle, and without an experimenter present (naturalistic driving data). The biggest project in this line of research is named the Strategic Highway Research Project 2 (SHRP funded by the government via the transportation research board) that has equipped 3000+ vehicles with an array of sensors and cameras to really get at the true causes of crashes. This project has observed approx. 1000 crashes 5000 near crashes and 5 Million miles of driving. There has been a driver distraction report published from a subset of this data (focusing on contributing factors of forward collisions). The publication can be read here ... http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/shrp2/SHRP2prepubS08AReport.pdf.
Most driving research does not use this kind of data because it is very expensive to collect, store, and analyze.

What this kind of data has repeatedly taught us is that any task where the driver does not have to take eyes of the forward road scene is not ASSOCIATED with a higher crash risk than just driving. Often times with naturalistic driving data you will observe tasks like talking on the phone are associated with less risk. Explanations for this is that drivers choose when to talk on the phone (in experiments participants are told when to perform a task) and drivers can make driving accommodations (i.e., stay in a single lane and keep a longer following distance). Effects of mental or cognitive distraction is not difficult to observe in the lab. For instance a participant may be less likely to respond to a red light in the side view mirror when doing mental math. But as mentioned, on the real road, drivers adjust their driving style to make up for negative effects of increased mental load. Furthermore, if our eyes are on the road, driving is a rather automated experience for us. We simply do not need to commit all our mental resources towards routine driving. We use our excess mental capacity to get lost in thought (we are all distracted drivers but manage to get home safe). Mental distraction does not seem to have a direct safety link.

Now I am not going to say that the driving behavior or a highly distracted person is not annoying but there is no direct public road evidence that a person on the phone is at greater risk of crashing (maybe just receiving hand gestures from other drivers).

Risk starts to ramp up when drivers take long single glances away from the forward road scene. Though, a glance does not have to long to contribute to a crash. Tasks like texting, dialing a phone, and searching for the phone are clearly associated with an increased level of crash risk. Though visually distracted drivers also change their driving behavior, it is much more difficult to respond to surprise events or maintain lane position than drivers talking on the phone but with their eyes on the road.

In regards to voice interactions with the vehicle, not a whole lot of road data has been analyzed yet. If I were to hypothesize ... in cases where the driver is asked to look at text, (for instance if you are trying to compose a message with your voice but you want to read your message before sending) then this kind of interaction will likely increase risk. If the interaction is purely auditory/vocal, there really is no direct public road data suggesting that it will be associated with an increased crash risk.

I am not an Apple employee

That's a bunch of hooey. When the distracted driver slows down in the lane while attempting to stay further behind the vehicle ahead, he becomes a hazard to other drivers as he impedes them and 'encourages' them to cut in front of him when that space is too large.

Several times every day in an 18-mile drive I have been able to avoid having someone else who is driving distracted from running into my vehicle. That other person runs red lights, speeds, moves out of his lane, drives straight when the road curves, and sits at a light that has turned green until the vehicle in front has cleared the intersection or hears the following vehicles honking. And I am not even referring to those who never check their lights and have NO brake lights or functioning turn signals.

----------

I'd end up in Idaho instead of the Sunoco gas station down the street.


But seriously--i'm about to install the new Pioneer 8000 with Car Play. It looks to be far more safe. You cannot read your texts--it just reads them for you. When you text, you dictate and, again, Siri dictates it back to you. No Facebook. No surfing the web. I think the biggest risk is when Siri sends a text that SOUNDS right but the words are spelled wrong (better to appear stupid than dead).

Car Play should be considerably more safe.

Distracted driving is distracted driving.

Better to refrain from texting while driving. The main responsibility of the driver is to drive ... safely.

 

[jettredmont]

Siri + Location services = Throw iPhone across car.

Me: "Directions to 1st street."
Siri: "I'm sorry. I cannot find 1st street."
OR
Siri: "I found 1st street in Sacramento, CA. It's pretty far from you."

Now, keep in mind, this is from NJ. But, if I specify a zip code in NJ, Siri can find the correct 1st street.

Why can Siri arbitrarily find one hundreds or thousands of miles away, but cannot find the closest "1st street" and then increase its distance to find the next closest one?

Location services, more than Siri, is quite maddening.

That's actually fairly common with navigation apps and GPS units, finding addresses across the country instead of nearest to you. The problem is "find 1st street" is not a (1) find all streets named "1st street" (2) order from nearest to farthest (3) pick closest match. There are heuristics involved in the naming which give a relevancy ranking, and prominence of the destination (if you said "Show me the Eiffel Tower" you probably mean the one in Paris, not "Eiffel's Tower of Pancakes" in downtown Burbank). Most systems do a local search first then the national search if nothing ranks above a certain threshold locally so a crap local match doesn't trump a prominent landmark, but a near-perfect local match will.

In any case, the solution is (duh) tell it more information. "Navigate to first street, Hoboken" will probably get you the street in Hoboken, not in Sacramento.

In an ideal world, navigation systems (Siri included) would be smarter. Given they are all equally stupid, though, I think that the tech for doing what you expect in a reasonably efficient manner is just not there yet.

 

[sunseeker]

Safe if properly used/practiced

I can agree that voice control in the car could be extremely distracting
I've been using it since Siri came out and in the beginning it was quite frustrating

Important things to consider

1. When Siri doesn't understand you - give up.
Seriously, two attempts are fine, but after that the frustration (even anger) kicks in - pull over and do it the old fashioned way

2. Know your microphone
I've used Siri in two cars,

A Hyundai Getz with in built bluetooth and the microphone on the dash mounted stereo

A Hyundai Getz with Visor mounted Jabra

An Opel Corsa with an inbuilt Microphone above the rear view mirror (plus a Miccus for music and podcasts that cannot play through bluetooth as a result of weaknesses in the built in bluetooth of that car)

The dash mic was the worst, evan as siri improved I would not be understood properly as a result of the low quality mic and (often) the airflow of the adjacent vents (voice recognition would drop sharply if the fan was on)

With the roof mic and very deliberately giving up after two failed attempts I have found siri to actually remove distractions (all the tasks and thoughts I have while driving now have an outlet)

For anyone without a roof mounted mic the Jabra (or similar) is a good workable option - in my Getz I was able to activate siri from the button on the phone or with the button on the Jabra. In this setup the audio was played clearly through the car audio system and my voice was picked up well by the Jabra Mic

 

[jettredmont]

So, composing a text message, which actually requires looking AWAY from the road, is less distracting than speaking? I find that extremely hard to believe. This seems like a completely bogus study to me.

[edit] I missed the asterisk in the chart. That's composing messages "using hands-free voice commands while driving". That makes more sense.

However, if the participants were not using Siri to compose messages, what were they using?

You'll think I'm joking, but I'm not.

They were speaking into a lapel-attached microphone, and the audio was listened to by a researcher who spoke any necessary responses into the car's audio system. They call it the "Wizard of Oz setup" in the study. Basically, they wanted to eliminate any potential mishearing issues involved in any of the scenarios. Except Siri, of course.

Yes, really.

----------

Siri make phone calls harder than necessary. For example, I say "call John Smith Mobile". Siri: "You have 2 John Smith's, home and mobile, which do you want me to call? WTH, my Android from 4 years ago would know I wanted the mobile, without asking further questions. If I say call John Smith on Mobile, just make the frigging call. LOL

That scenario has worked for me since day 1 with Siri. I wonder what it thinks you are saying instead of "Mobile"?

In any case, the recognition of "on Mobile" or "'s mobile phone" or "'s cell phone" are all in Siri's lexicon (because they work for me and everyone else I've suggested that to), which means the likely issue is the speech-to-text leg of the command.

 

[jettredmont]

Because the TL;DR version posted on MR didn't see fit to print it. If, heaven forbid, a person actually took the time to read the source material it would be readily apparent this isn't about Apple at all. It's about Hands-Free in general.

Sometimes it's not about the news you get, but where you get it.

To answer your question directly: Excerpted from the source material
"The study also separately assessed Apple’s Siri (version iOS 7) using insight obtained from Apple about Siri’s functionality at the time the research was conducted. Researchers used the same metrics to measure a broader range of tasks including using social media, sending texts and updating calendars. The research uncovered that hands- and eyes-free use of Apple’s Siri generated a relatively high category 4 level of mental distraction.

To put all of this year’s findings in context, last year’s research revealed that listening to the radio rated as a category 1 distraction; talking on a hand-held or hands-free cell phone resulted in a category 2 distraction; and using an error-free speech-to-text system to listen to and compose emails or texts was a category 3 distraction.

“... Technologies used in the car that rely on voice communications may have unintended consequences that adversely affect road safety,” said Peter Kissinger, President and CEO of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. “The level of distraction and the impact on safety can vary tremendously based on the task or the system the driver is using.”

To assess “real-world” impact, Dr. Joel Cooper with Precision Driving Research evaluated the two most common voice-based interactions in which drivers engage – changing radio stations and voice dialing – with the actual voice-activated systems found in six different automakers’ vehicles. On the five point scale, Toyota’s Entune® system garnered the lowest cognitive distraction ranking (at 1.7), which is similar to listening to an audio book. In comparison, the Chevrolet MyLink® resulted in a high level of cognitive distraction (rating of 3.7). Other systems tested included the Hyundai Blue Link (rating 2.2), the Chrysler Uconnect™ (rating 2.7), Ford SYNC with MyFord Touch® (rating 3.0) and the Mercedes COMAND® (rating 3.1).

“It is clear that not all voice systems are created equal, and today’s imperfect systems can lead to driver distraction,” continued Darbelnet. “AAA is confident that it will be possible to make safer systems in the future...”

This phase of the research highlights the variability in demands across all the systems tested."

I'm not picking on you, but it's a common refrain on MR to deflect by saying "but what about company x" instead of addressing the topic of the post. All of the silliness posted by other individuals could have been avoided by simply perusing the source material. I think MR sometimes edits info for clicks instead of facts.

The researchers did not test posting to Facebook and updating calendars with any of those systems.

The researchers did not test (or at least publish separately) changing (Pandora, ex) stations or the volume using Siri.

I am sorry, but the study is not a good test of Siri versus anything, and while the authors don't full-on cast it as a "Siri failed" conclusion, they provided no control for their Siri test and so can not conclude if the cognitive load from doing those complex tasks on Siri is due to Siri or the complex tasks or Siri's implementation of how to do those complex tasks. They also provided a wealth of speculation which was unsupported by their actual research.

Granted, the press has as usual taken a secondary aspect of the study and made it "the story", but the authors were either incompetent in writing up research or intended their study to be seen this way.

For what it is worth, I read the entire study before coming here to the comments. It is clear that many people did not (people confused over what the study means by texting and navigating menus for instance), but you are not characterizing the original study correctly above. The authors used the Siri brand name to get attention, and so they shouldn't be given the benefit of the doubt that really their study is about complex tasks not Siri.

 

[Mr. Gates]

Why did i never see a study like this on SYNC by Microsoft or Android Auto?

Lack of voice

 

[jettredmont]

I would like to see the comparative results of:

Just driving (as a baseline they already show)
vs.
Having a conversation with a passenger in the car (which is not illegal)
Having a conversation with someone over bluetooth (which is not illegal)
Having a conversation with someone while holding a phone (which is illegal)


I find it hard to believe there is much of a difference in mental distraction between having a conversation with someone in the car vs. remotely...

I would then like these compared to interacting with Siri.

Other studies have covered exactly that comparison and found a significant increase in cognitive load on each step from top to bottom (the last because you need to be able to do things which involve two hands in the car). This study, as flawed as it is, did not attempt to compare those specific uses but rather different modes of communication (texting, talking, facebooking), so far as I can tell.

----------

How come driving only, still rates a small level of mental distraction. Does that mean that driving can distract you from driving? I don't get it.

They are measuring reaction time to events, like a kid darting out from a yard or a car door opening or the car next to you swerving into your lane. The "baseline" is when you have your attention on operating your vehicle only, and the other tests add additional tasks to the stack.

(I believe the study was actually random green/red dots appearing in their peripheral vision which they had to acknowledge to simulate events they should notice, which sounds less legit than it is.)

 

[neutrino23]

Probably the car microphone had an influence. Siri understands better when you can speak directly into the phone.

 

[jettredmont]

The type of study you're talking about would only pertain to people well-versed with the specific technology. This study was probably specifically tailored to an 'average' person. You know the type, they 'think' they know how to use the device but really don't. In the case of Siri, they may well be pretty competent with it while sitting, even walking, but driving is a different matter.

Studies like this are devised to test just the average Joe. Completely different.

The participants were mostly young and inexperienced drivers, although with good driving records. They were not, however, representative of people on the road who would be using Siri (maybe "young and inexperienced" would be a good sampling of people stupid enough to Facebook using Siri while driving, but I digress ...)

If you took a sampling of pople on the road who were using Siri, you would have a large body of people who had used it for months-to-years and were quite familiar with it, and a smaller portion of people who were new to it (had an iPhone for a while but hadn't used Siri, or just bought an iPhone, etc).

In the study, they took not iPhone-owners or iPhone-owners who were using Siri in their cars, but "average people". The iPhone sales numbers indicate that the majority of these people did not own iPhones, and the majority of those who did own iPhones were not familiar with using Siri in the car.

This is not a representative sample of people who actually would be using Siri on the road.

To give an extreme analog, imagine you wanted to test how straight people could drive in reverse. So, you go to the local high school and pick 50 people at random and put them behind the wheel of a car to see how they do. The 50% (or more) of your sample who don't even have a driving permit probably won't do as well as those who have driving training this doesn't mean that you should conclude that "driving in reverse is deadly and must be outlawed!" If you are not starting with a representative sample of people who naturally would participate in an activity you are not getting a statistically representative sample.

 

[tongxinshe]

I prefer people don't even talk on the phone while driving (even bluetooth)... no matter what you say, it's an unnecessary distraction.

On a normal day, I would say 80-90% of people driving like complete idiots are on their phone in one way shape or form. (usually talking)

At the same time, I also often see idiot driving behaviors from people not using phones, too. In another words, it's not whether they are on the phone or not, it's their driving skills. We need a stricter driving skill testing system, with incentives for higher skill drivers.

 

[Swift]

Why did i never see a study like this on SYNC by Microsoft or Android Auto?

Interesting question, and I don't know. After looking at the ads for SYNC and hearing tech experts praise the FORD system, it was a very revealing thing when the yearly surveys came out, and people really didn't like it that much. A lot hated it.

Undeniably the most distracting thing to do in the car is talk on the phone. You girlfriend? You get distracted. Your wife? Your kid? Your boss? Sources of stress, even good stress. You're in a ton of metal careening down the highway, and intellectual and emotional stimulation isn't what you want. There's a driving groove, and it doesn't include getting a call from the ex about why the check isn't there this month. Stress-s-s! Instead, put on some cool tunes, lay back and cruise. Keep your eyes and your mind off the road.

Still you can do all this safely. Wait till a red light to send a message. And don't be the kind of person who finds Siri's punch lines "upsetting." Maps? Depends solely on where you live. What's important is that the route be good and the voice tells you what to do in plenty of time. Fundamentally, we don't have great systems yet.

----------

Probably the car microphone had an influence. Siri understands better when you can speak directly into the phone.

I don't find that. The microphone and the phone work about equally well for me.

 

[Keirasplace]

You seem to be assuming that the average iPhone user has done all this Siri prep and is an advanced user. Not true. A sampling should correlate to your overall population, not to merely advanced users.

.
They are using convenience Sampling, which it the type of sampling is the least likely to match the average population. It is not rare that the results from a study that uses a convenience sample differ significantly with the results from the entire population. A consequence of having systematic bias is obtaining skewed results. Another significant criticism about using a convenience sample is the limitation in generalization and inference making about the entire population.

Even using a totally random sample of 45 and not looking at errors from other biases would introduce significant potential errors in result (10%+) between the average US, or even local population and the their results.

Another problem in this case is that people would use Siri in the advanced way they used it then is likely very far from the average population, average car driver or even average Iphone user. I don't use Siri like that.

In this case, they all come from a same age group and a same school, probably similar demos, probably most haven't used Siri in this way before the study! So, what on earth is their sampling representative of in the case of Siri?

If they set up Siri as a representative of an high engagement task (because its new to the user) and not that Siri itself is that is tested, then I can go for that, otherwise, they go beyond what the results tell them.

I haven't even looked if the size of the sample permits distinguishing the various things tested with significance. From my flyover read, I'd say no. Though, the probability distribution for attention versus distraction may be skewed enough that it may not need a huge number of distracted versus non distracted subjects in the experiments to conclude to a significant impairement (though not determine the precise level) with any significance.

A lot of so called "scientific" tests go into conclusion that go way beyond what their test can actually measure.

 

[tdtran1025]

Another debacle! How many more will a customer endure before jumping ship?
Maybe Cortana is the woman Siri wants to grow up to be?
Another thing, Duckduckgo is such a lame search engine, and sadly so far, nothing else out there beats Google Search.

 

[donnaw]

The participants were mostly young and inexperienced drivers, although with good driving records. They were not, however, representative of people on the road who would be using Siri (maybe "young and inexperienced" would be a good sampling of people stupid enough to Facebook using Siri while driving, but I digress ...)

If you took a sampling of pople on the road who were using Siri, you would have a large body of people who had used it for months-to-years and were quite familiar with it, and a smaller portion of people who were new to it (had an iPhone for a while but hadn't used Siri, or just bought an iPhone, etc).

In the study, they took not iPhone-owners or iPhone-owners who were using Siri in their cars, but "average people". The iPhone sales numbers indicate that the majority of these people did not own iPhones, and the majority of those who did own iPhones were not familiar with using Siri in the car.

This is not a representative sample of people who actually would be using Siri on the road.

To give an extreme analog, imagine you wanted to test how straight people could drive in reverse. So, you go to the local high school and pick 50 people at random and put them behind the wheel of a car to see how they do. The 50% (or more) of your sample who don't even have a driving permit probably won't do as well as those who have driving training this doesn't mean that you should conclude that "driving in reverse is deadly and must be outlawed!" If you are not starting with a representative sample of people who naturally would participate in an activity you are not getting a statistically representative sample.

The study was not meant to be a study 'of people who use Siri'. It was a study of hands-free driving. It wasn't meant to be a study of how well Siri works, how much people were familiar with Siri...that simply was not the purpose.

 

[JeffDM]

It would be one thing if voice recognition understood and properly transcribed, but a lot of times, it doesn't. So you have to correct or redo. And getting the dictation correct is very hard in a noisy car cabin.

 

[69Mustang]

The researchers did not test posting to Facebook and updating calendars with any of those systems.

The researchers did not test (or at least publish separately) changing (Pandora, ex) stations or the volume using Siri.

I am sorry, but the study is not a good test of Siri versus anything, and while the authors don't full-on cast it as a "Siri failed" conclusion, they provided no control for their Siri test and so can not conclude if the cognitive load from doing those complex tasks on Siri is due to Siri or the complex tasks or Siri's implementation of how to do those complex tasks. They also provided a wealth of speculation which was unsupported by their actual research.

Granted, the press has as usual taken a secondary aspect of the study and made it "the story", but the authors were either incompetent in writing up research or intended their study to be seen this way.

For what it is worth, I read the entire study before coming here to the comments. It is clear that many people did not (people confused over what the study means by texting and navigating menus for instance), but you are not characterizing the original study correctly above. The authors used the Siri brand name to get attention, and so they shouldn't be given the benefit of the doubt that really their study is about complex tasks not Siri.

My commentary was less about the authors' intent and more about the comments in this thread. Whether Siri was used to get attention doesn't change the fact that the interpretations permeating this thread are based primarily on mistaken or misinterpreted information. That AAA study basically says hands-free presents a distraction for drivers and can be mitigated better by making changes to the interactions. But I will agree that mentioning Siri does bring eyes to the report. I just think people should read more critically instead of "OMG somebody said something bad about Apple so let's come to Apple's defense." Apple doesn't need defending. Neither does Siri. The underlying premise is valid. Driving distractions need to be lessened.

 

[scoobydoo99]

duh

news flash: thinking about things other than driving while behind the wheel causes distraction. the more intense the cognitive load, the more distracted you are. doesn't matter if it's a phone call or siri or searching for music on the radio. don't need studies to tell us this.

 

[DynaFXD]

The study was not meant to be a study 'of people who use Siri'. It was a study of hands-free driving. It wasn't meant to be a study of how well Siri works, how much people were familiar with Siri...that simply was not the purpose.

Agreed. jettredmont seems to be implying a hypothesis that those that use Siri frequently are better trained in its interaction and would therefore not be statistically more or less distracted than a non-Siri using driver without submitting data to back it up. I have no data either, but it sounds similar to assertions that suggested that folks who fancied themselves vigorous multitaskers could juggle tasks behind the wheel better than the average Joe/Jane. Spoiler: they can't.
Lesson, IMO, when driving, drive. Pull over for playing around with gadgets.

----------

news flash: thinking about things other than driving while behind the wheel causes distraction. the more intense the cognitive load, the more distracted you are. doesn't matter if it's a phone call or siri or searching for music on the radio. don't need studies to tell us this.

The point is that manufacturers are racing to INCREASE this load on drivers with all manner of telemetric devices - GPS, phones, Siri, complex radios to get connected. You recognize the problem, you just outlined it. Now what?

 

[theanimaster]

Siri keeps popping up on my iPad when I'm using my iPad at work and talking to a customer on the phone. I have my iPad plugged in as a Picture Frame.

NOWHERE have I said anything that sounded like "HEY SIRI..." to activate Siri. Apple and their bugs... they smell like Microsoft these days.

On another note, it took me three attempts in my quiet room to get Siri to activate when I was saying "Hey Siri". Ha.

 

[Msail30bay]

STOP fiddling with yourself and that darn phone and focus on the road............ period. Emails, people, messages, Facebook updates, blah blah blah -- can wait. WHY is it so hard for so many to understand such a simple thing?