Testing a Commercial BCI Device for In-Vehicle Interfaces Evaluation

Abstract

This study is assessing the sensitivity of an affordable BCI device in the context of driver distraction in both low-fidelity simulator and real-world driving environments. Twenty-three participants performed a car following task while using a smartphone application involving a range of generic smartphone widgets. On the first hand, the results demonstrated that secondary task completion time is a fairly robust metric as it is sensitive to user-interfaces style while being consistent between the two driving environments. On the second hand, while the BCI attention level metric was not sensitive to the different user-interfaces, we found it to be significantly higher in the real-driving environment than in the simulated one, which reproduces findings obtained with medical-grade sensors.

Texting While Driving: A Literature Review on Driving Simulator Studies

“…Others used specialized eye-tracking devices: Fovio eye tracker [20]; Ergoneers' Dikablis Essential head-mounted eye tracker [36,55]; eye-tracking system developed by Seeing Machines, Ltd. (Canberra, Australia): faceLAB™ 4.1 [90]; faceLAB™ 5.0 [31]; Pupil Lab's Pro head-mounted eye tracker [100]; SmartEye6.0 [69]; eye-tracking glasses developed by SensoMotoric Instruments, Berlin, Germany [74,78,101]; Tobii Pro Glasses 2 [80,84], Ergoneers Dikablis Eye Tracker 3 glasses [102]; and one paper did not mention the device. A MindCap XL headband equipped with a NeuroSky sensor was used to measure brain activity [59]. In [33], a high-speed infrared camera Motion Analysis Corp., Santa Rosa, CA, USA, was used to track the full body of the participants.…”

“…Furthermore, most activities unrelated to the driving task combine these four modes [58]. For instance, the most common compound distraction is a visual-manual distraction, defined as a secondary activity that involves using hand gestures to manipulate a visual interface [59]. While some articles focused on the visual component [55,60,61], others considered two, three, or even four types of distractions.…”

Eyes on the road: brain computer interfaces and cognitive distraction in traffic

“…The use and marketing of active BCIs in traffic may be accompanied by the conviction that it may increase the ease of vehicle control, reducing visual-manual distractions (Louveton et al, 2017 ; Mironov et al, 2021 ). However, we argue that in the best case, those devices might not constitute a significantly less distracting alternative to simpler hands-free devices due to remaining cognitive interference, and in the worst case may be more distracting and tiring for the user.…”

“…The ability of BCIs to enable hands-free typing would make it possible to send text messages or search for information on the web, and this novel way of navigating the digital world may have large implications for how we navigate the physical world. Non-motoric, hands-free device control makes BCIs particularly interesting in the context of travel and vehicle operation in traffic, where they could be used to mentally operate vehicle interfaces like GPS or driving support (Louveton et al, 2017 ; Chavarriaga et al, 2018 ; Nissan, 2018 ; Mercedes-Benz Group, 2021 ; Yang and Van Hulle, 2023 ), or for non-travel related applications like mobile communication such as writing messages or initiating phone calls. Because we acknowledge that, for the aforementioned reasons, these devices might now or in the near future raise commercial interest, we would like to draw attention toward potential misconceptions or undesirable implications at the earliest possible stage of development and deployment.…”

“…. (Louveton et al, 2017;Chavarriaga et al, 2018;Nissan, 2018;Mercedes-Benz Group, 2021;Yang and Van Hulle, 2023), or for non-travel related applications like mobile communication such as writing messages or initiating phone calls. Because we acknowledge that, for the aforementioned reasons, these devices might now or in the near future raise commercial interest, we would like to draw attention toward potential misconceptions or undesirable implications at the earliest possible stage of development and deployment.…”