Driven to Distraction: Exploring Mind Wandering During a Virtual Reality City Drive

Research has characterized mind-wandering as humans' natural mental state, with moments of task-focused attention being the exception. With this framing, mind-wandering while driving likely occurs more than generally acknowledged, and seems poised to increase with higher levels of automation. This in turn may have adverse effects on drivers' abilities to regain situation awareness or resume control when needed. Of the prior work on detecting mind-wandering while driving, none focuses on automation or complex urban environments. We ran an exploratory study (N=14) of an automated drive through New York City in a two-dimensional virtual reality context, focusing on physiological measures such as gaze distribution, pupillometry, and heart rate. We also explored how drivers missing critical events may be a potential new measure. Results varied between focused and mind-wandering mental states and between moving and stopped driving contexts. These observations are an initial step toward understanding mind-wandering across diverse driving scenarios.