Evaluation of EEG Activation Pattern on the Experience of Visual Perception in the Driving

Abstract

The brain processes numerous information related to traffic scenes for appropriate perception, judgment, and operation in vehicle driving. Here, the strategy for perception, judgment, and operation is individually different for each driver, and this difference is thought to be arise from experience of driving. In the present work, we measure and analyze human brain activity (EEG: Electroencephalogram) related to visual perception during vehicle driving to clarify the relationship between experience of driving and brain activity. As a result, more experts generate α activities than beginners, and also confirm that the β activities is reduced than beginners. These results firstly indicate that experience of driving is reflected into the activation pattern of EEG.

The Effects of Driving Experience on the P300 Event-Related Potential during the Perception of Traffic Scenes

“…As a result, higher traffic-collision rates are reported for beginner drivers compared with for experienced drivers. We recently reported that the EEG activation patterns of drivers are uniquely altered between experienced and beginner drivers [ 34 ]. Moreover, the estimated gamma-band functional connectivity from EEG recordings of the whole-brain area is entirely different between experienced and beginner drivers [ 35 ].…”

“…The definition of driving experience is complicated. In this study, to investigate the effects of driving experience, the subjects were divided into experienced and beginner drivers on the basis of their driving frequency and the duration for which they have held a driver’s license [ 2 ], which is the same definition as that in our previous study [ 34 , 35 ]. In this study, our experienced subjects had driven more than five times per week and maintained a valid driver’s license for at least three years.…”

“…A driver’s brain’s signal processing has gradually been explored in human physical characteristics and driving maneuvers. However, minimal knowledge exists regarding the effects of experience on brain activity during driving [ 34 , 35 ].…”

“…For example, beginner drivers tend to pay more attention to the side lane when compared to experienced drivers [ 38 ], who tend to fixate on the location where the vehicle will be in the next few seconds [ 39 , 40 ]. Additionally, more experienced drivers employ a wider horizontal scan area when compared to beginner drivers [ 34 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 ]. However, the effects of driving experience on signal processing in the brain that underlie visual attention, and the perception of traffic scenes remain largely unexplored, despite large amounts of evidence supporting the relationship between driving experience and visual search [ 15 ].…”

“…The effect of driving experience on the brain activation pattern in psychoperceptual driving tasks was recently found. Driving experience can be characterized by an EEG activity pattern consisting of alpha and high-beta (gamma) bands [ 34 ], and driving experience appears to alter functional connectivity related to gamma-band EEGs [ 35 ]. Furthermore, the P300 event-related potential, usually observed at the parietal association cortex, is selectively related to visual attention aiming at multiple targets in a scene, and is a crucial response to understanding the visual-attention characteristics in visual search [ 46 ].…”