Effects of Auditory Feedback on Increasing Drivers' Alertness

• Main Authors: Chen, Jian-Ann, 陳建安
• Other Authors: Lin, Chin-Teng
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/01808978793596351355

碩士 === 國立交通大學 === 生醫工程研究所 === 97 === Driver inattention was widely attributed as a leading cause of car accidents. Using appropriate stimulating warnings might considerably reduce the lapses of attention and in turn, effectively avoid catastrophic consequences. Several studies have reported that the auditory feedback could contribute significantly to improving task performance. To what extent such behavioral changes could reflect on what already altered in the brain dynamics was unclear. The aim of this study is to explore the neural correlates of arousing signals delivered to subjects when they suffered from momentary cognitive drowsiness. Eleven subjects participated in virtual-reality (VR)-based highway driving experiments. The event-related lane-departure task was used in the VR environment to simulate the long-term high way driving and the task-related EEG spectral dynamics in terms of tonic and phasic changes were analyzed using independent component analysis, time-frequency and non-parametric statistical assessments. Results demonstrated the warning sounds can accelerate the response time and partially inhibit the drowsiness related brain oscillations. Furthermore, the effects of warning sounds on reducing the driver’s drossiness could sustain at least for 10 sec. In the future, methods to refine the characteristics the warning sounds and the combination with other warning modalities are needed for further studies.