Patent ID: 8078364

Claim:
A vehicle seat apparatus, comprising: a vehicle seat; a swiveling drive unit that swivels the vehicle seat between a frontward-oriented position in which the vehicle seat faces a front of a vehicle and at least one of an outward-oriented position in which the vehicle seat is oriented in an outward direction of the vehicle and an inward-oriented position in which the vehicle seat is oriented in an inward direction of the vehicle; a traveling route information obtainment unit that obtains information on a traveling route along which the vehicle travels, wherein the traveling route information obtainment unit includes a map information obtainment unit that obtains map information; and a control unit that controls an operation of the swiveling drive unit based on the information obtained by the traveling route information obtainment unit; wherein when the control unit determines that the vehicle has come close to a preset specific visual target based on information obtained by the map information obtainment unit, the control unit controls the operation of the swiveling drive unit so that the vehicle seat is swiveled toward the preset specific visual target.