@inproceedings{fredriksson-etal-2026-vanishing,
title = "Vanishing point of attention: A platform for adaptive driver dialogue experiments",
author = "Fredriksson, Morgan and
Yaici, Yanis and
Lam, Kevin and
Konigsmann, Jurgen and
Edlund, Jens",
editor = "Riccardi, Giuseppe and
Mousavi, Seyed Mahed and
Torres, Maria Ines and
Yoshino, Koichiro and
Callejas, Zoraida and
Chowdhury, Shammur Absar and
Chen, Yun-Nung and
Bechet, Frederic and
Gustafson, Joakim and
Damnati, G{\'e}raldine and
Papangelis, Alex and
D{'}Haro, Luis Fernando and
Mendon{\c{c}}a, John and
Bernardi, Raffaella and
Hakkani-Tur, Dilek and
Di Fabbrizio, Giuseppe {''}Pino{''} and
Kawahara, Tatsuya and
Alam, Firoj and
Tur, Gokhan and
Johnston, Michael",
booktitle = "Proceedings of the 16th International Workshop on Spoken Dialogue System Technology",
month = feb,
year = "2026",
address = "Trento, Italy",
publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
url = "https://aclanthology.org/2026.iwsds-1.24/",
pages = "231--238",
abstract = "Current in-vehicle conversational agents lack awareness of the driving situation, treating all dialogue alike regardless of cognitive demands. This paper presents a modular experimental platform that integrates the {CARLA} driving simulator with a real-time spatial-reasoning engine to support research on situation-aware dialogue. The system enables {W}izard-of-{O}z studies in which human operators control conversational agents informed by live spatial-semantic analysis of the traffic environment. As initial validation, a controlled study (n = 10) tested the platform{'}s sensitivity to conversational load effects, examining whether increasing conversational complexity produces a vanishing point of attention, a threshold where combined conversational and driving demands lead to a non-linear collapse in performance. Results revealed a sharp rise in collisions and missed hazard detections under high cognitive load, confirming the platform{'}s sensitivity to conversational strain. The platform provides a reproducible testbed for investigating how dialogue timing, content, and environmental demands interact, offering a foundation for designing adaptive, cognitively safe in-vehicle conversational systems."
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<abstract>Current in-vehicle conversational agents lack awareness of the driving situation, treating all dialogue alike regardless of cognitive demands. This paper presents a modular experimental platform that integrates the CARLA driving simulator with a real-time spatial-reasoning engine to support research on situation-aware dialogue. The system enables Wizard-of-Oz studies in which human operators control conversational agents informed by live spatial-semantic analysis of the traffic environment. As initial validation, a controlled study (n = 10) tested the platform’s sensitivity to conversational load effects, examining whether increasing conversational complexity produces a vanishing point of attention, a threshold where combined conversational and driving demands lead to a non-linear collapse in performance. Results revealed a sharp rise in collisions and missed hazard detections under high cognitive load, confirming the platform’s sensitivity to conversational strain. The platform provides a reproducible testbed for investigating how dialogue timing, content, and environmental demands interact, offering a foundation for designing adaptive, cognitively safe in-vehicle conversational systems.</abstract>
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%0 Conference Proceedings
%T Vanishing point of attention: A platform for adaptive driver dialogue experiments
%A Fredriksson, Morgan
%A Yaici, Yanis
%A Lam, Kevin
%A Konigsmann, Jurgen
%A Edlund, Jens
%Y Riccardi, Giuseppe
%Y Mousavi, Seyed Mahed
%Y Torres, Maria Ines
%Y Yoshino, Koichiro
%Y Callejas, Zoraida
%Y Chowdhury, Shammur Absar
%Y Chen, Yun-Nung
%Y Bechet, Frederic
%Y Gustafson, Joakim
%Y Damnati, Géraldine
%Y Papangelis, Alex
%Y D’Haro, Luis Fernando
%Y Mendonça, John
%Y Bernardi, Raffaella
%Y Hakkani-Tur, Dilek
%Y Di Fabbrizio, Giuseppe ”Pino”
%Y Kawahara, Tatsuya
%Y Alam, Firoj
%Y Tur, Gokhan
%Y Johnston, Michael
%S Proceedings of the 16th International Workshop on Spoken Dialogue System Technology
%D 2026
%8 February
%I Association for Computational Linguistics
%C Trento, Italy
%F fredriksson-etal-2026-vanishing
%X Current in-vehicle conversational agents lack awareness of the driving situation, treating all dialogue alike regardless of cognitive demands. This paper presents a modular experimental platform that integrates the CARLA driving simulator with a real-time spatial-reasoning engine to support research on situation-aware dialogue. The system enables Wizard-of-Oz studies in which human operators control conversational agents informed by live spatial-semantic analysis of the traffic environment. As initial validation, a controlled study (n = 10) tested the platform’s sensitivity to conversational load effects, examining whether increasing conversational complexity produces a vanishing point of attention, a threshold where combined conversational and driving demands lead to a non-linear collapse in performance. Results revealed a sharp rise in collisions and missed hazard detections under high cognitive load, confirming the platform’s sensitivity to conversational strain. The platform provides a reproducible testbed for investigating how dialogue timing, content, and environmental demands interact, offering a foundation for designing adaptive, cognitively safe in-vehicle conversational systems.
%U https://aclanthology.org/2026.iwsds-1.24/
%P 231-238
Markdown (Informal)
[Vanishing point of attention: A platform for adaptive driver dialogue experiments](https://aclanthology.org/2026.iwsds-1.24/) (Fredriksson et al., IWSDS 2026)
ACL