Your stomach knows best? : Using electrogastrography to assess motion-sickness-related discomfort in comfort-oriented automated vehicle interfaces

Gruden, Timotej (author), Jakus, Grega (author), Sodnik, Jaka (author), Stojmenova Pečečnik, Kristina (author)

In this paper, we present a novel approach of assessment of user interfaces, designed to positively affect passenger comfort, using electrogastrography (EGG). EGG is a method that records electrical activity of the stomach, and has been shown to reliably assess motion sickness, which is one of the main contributors to physical discomfort in AVs. A user study with 26 (22 complete data sets for analysis) participants was conducted in a driving simulator, assessing three types of auditory-tactile user interfaces (UI) (baseline, abstract, representational) for highly automated driving using EGG features such as dominant fre-quency, tachygastria, and crest factor of spectral density. The results indicate that the percentage of power spectrum density in the tachygastric range increased when using an abstract UI during events requiring lateral AV maneuvers. These findings suggest that EGG can serve as an objective method for evaluating passenger-centric interfaces in future vehicles.

• Language: English
• Keywords: electrogastrography, comfort, automated driving, user interface, driving simulator
• Typology: 1.08 - Published Scientific Conference Contribution
• Organization: FE - Faculty of Electrical Engineering
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2026
• Number of pages: Str. 250-255
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-189400
• UDC: 629.33-52:004.8
• ISSN on article: 2168-4081
• DOI: 10.1145/3828158.3838259
• COBISS.SI-ID: 293692419
• Publication date in RUL: 05.10.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: 18th International ACM Conference on Automotive User Interfaces : September 20-23, 2026
• Publisher: Association for Computing Machinery
• COBISS.SI-ID: 293651203

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: elektrogastrografija, udobje, avtomatizirana vožnja, uporabniški vmesnik, simulator vožnje

Projects

• Funder: ARIS - Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency
• Project number: P2-0246
• Name: ICT4QoL - Informacijsko komunikacijske tehnologije za kakovostno življenje

• Funder: EC - European Commission
• Project number: 101147819
• Name: Federated cybeR-physical infrastructure for ODD cOntinuity
• Acronym: FRODDO