Creepy Googly Eyes Could Make Self-Driving Cars Safer for Pedestriants, Researchers Claim

A pair of animated yet creepy googly eyes that help autonomous vehicles have a clearer vision on the road could be a simple improvement in lowering the chances of self-driving cars hitting unnoticed pedestrians, according to an experiment conducted by Japanese researchers.

Researchers from the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University describe an experiment where a golf cart with a human but invisible driver was upgraded with a large pair of manually controlled animated eyes on the front.

This work was recently presented at the 14th International Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and was first reported by Gizmodo.

The Experiment

Four different scenarios in which a cart was approaching pedestrians crossing a street were reenacted by researchers: one in which the pedestrian was seen and the cart intended to stop, and another in which they were not seen and the cart kept driving.

The researchers recreated the two scenarios but with the inclusion of googly eyes in the cart, which kept looking at and away from the pedestrian in each scenario.

The situations were videotaped with a 360-degree camera to ensure participant safety, and then 18 subjects-nine women and nine men between the ages of 18 and 49-took on the role of the pedestrian using a virtual reality headset and repeatedly played through the scenarios.

In just three seconds, the players had to analyze the scenario and choose whether or not to try to cross the road in front of the incoming golf cart.

The researchers found that male participants tended to make riskier decisions about crossing the road, often choosing to cross when the cart gave no signal that it was about to stop, while female participants were more cautious as they frequently chose not to cross when the cart was coming to a stop.

The participants did observe that crossing was less safe when the eyes of the vehicle were looking away, but they felt safer when the eyes seemed to be paying attention to them.

Creepy Googly Eyes

The researchers believe the effectiveness of the giant eyes could have been improved further if they had been created with aesthetics, such as lifelike movements and appearance, as per Gizmodo.

The participants also commented that the giant eyes were creepy and that it scared them as well.

The project serves as a reminder that changes won't be restricted to the actual vehicles as we advance in the future of autonomous cars and electric vehicles.

Despite how absurd or funky it may appear, placing animated eyes on the front of a car may just increase the safety of pedestrians in the instance that they approach a self-driving car.

This article is owned by Tech Times

Written by Joaquin Victor Tacla