{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,13]],"date-time":"2026-04-13T21:32:20Z","timestamp":1776115940284,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":48,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"4","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,4,15]],"date-time":"2021-04-15T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1618444800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001809","name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["71901061"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["71901061"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001809","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001809","name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["71871056"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["71871056"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001809","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Symmetry"],"abstract":"<jats:p>With the development and promotion of driverless technology, researchers are focusing on designing varied types of external interfaces to induce trust in road users towards this new technology. In this paper, we investigated the effectiveness of a multimodal external human\u2013machine interface (eHMI) for driverless vehicles in virtual environment, focusing on a two-way road scenario. Three phases of identifying, decelerating, and parking were taken into account in the driverless vehicles to pedestrian interaction process. Twelve eHMIs are proposed, which consist of three visual features (smile, arrow and none), three audible features (human voice, warning sound and none) and two physical features (yielding and not yielding). We conducted a study to gain a more efficient and safer eHMI for driverless vehicles when they interact with pedestrians. Based on study outcomes, in the case of yielding, the interaction efficiency and pedestrian safety in multimodal eHMI design was satisfactory compared to the single-modal system. The visual modality in the eHMI of driverless vehicles has the greatest impact on pedestrian safety. In addition, the \u201carrow\u201d was more intuitive to identify than the \u201csmile\u201d in terms of visual modality.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/sym13040687","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,4,15]],"date-time":"2021-04-15T21:35:13Z","timestamp":1618522513000},"page":"687","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":23,"title":["Evaluation of Multimodal External Human\u2013Machine Interface for Driverless Vehicles in Virtual Reality"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"13","author":[{"given":"Jinzhen","family":"Dou","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Mechanical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Shanguang","family":"Chen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Mechanical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Zhi","family":"Tang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Mechanical Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4649-4005","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Chang","family":"Xu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Mechanical Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Chengqi","family":"Xue","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Mechanical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,4,15]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"69","DOI":"10.1007\/s10111-018-0521-z","article-title":"Designing the interaction of automated vehicles with other traffic participants: Design considerations based on human needs and expectations","volume":"21","author":"Schieben","year":"2019","journal-title":"Cogn. 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