report

2011 workshop report

Overview
Twenty-five people from industry, government and academia were in attendance at CLW 2011. They heard eight presentations on topics related to in-vehicle cognitive load, and spent about two hours discussing the issues raised in the presentations.

Outcomes
Our discussions culminated in the work of four participant teams, each tasked with identifying the top issues we face as a community. The issues they identified are shown below:

From the image above we can see that two issues dominated the meeting:

  1. Definition of cognitive load. The majority of participants felt that the concept of cognitive load has to be defined more rigorously.
  2. Cognitive load management. How should we use cognitive load estimates? This question generated a number of ideas for possible research, from identifying thresholds for taking action in managing cognitive load, to accounting for context (including individual differences), to signal processing.

Evaluation
At the end of the workshop we asked participants to indicate their level of agreement with these four statements:

  1. I found the workshop to be useful.
  2. I enjoyed the workshop.
  3. I would attend a similar workshop at a future AutomotiveUI conference.
  4. This workshop is the reason I am attending AutomotiveUI 2011.

The responses of 18 of the 25 participants are shown below (the four workshop organizers in attendance did not complete the questionnaire). They indicate that the workshop was a success.

What is next?
Encouraged by CLW 2011, we are working on a proposal for CLW 2012 at AutomotiveUI 2012. Also, this fall Peter Froehlich and Andrew Kun will organize a special interest session on this topic at the 2012 ITS World Congress.

Thank you presenters and participants!
The workshop organizers are keenly aware of the fact that putting together a website, and making lunch reservations at a restaurant, are the fun part of organizing a workshop. The hard part is preparing papers, and participating in discussions. Of course, this is the work that was taken on by the workshop presenters and participants. The organizers are grateful for their efforts.

See more photos from CLW 2011 on Flickr.