Visual Attention, Driving Behavior and Driving Performance among Young Drivers in Sleep-deprived Condition

Abstract

Traffic accident is one of the main causes of death among young drivers, both in developed and developing country. Sleep deprivation is agreed to be one of the major contributing factors. In this study, we investigate the effect of sleep deprivation on visual attention during driving and how it contributes to driving behaviors and performance. Twelve male students (mean age = 21.6 years, SD = 0.6 years) who already had valid driving license participated in this study. They were required to drive on a driving simulator in two conditions: normal sleep and sleep-deprived condition. In normal sleep condition, participants were allowed to have a normal sleep for at least 8 h prior to having driving simulation session, whereas in sleep-deprived condition, participants performed simulated driving session after 24 h of continuous sleep deprivation. We found that visual attention, represented by fixation duration and number of fixation on Direct Sight, decreased during driving simulation in sleep deprivation condition. In addition, we observed performance deterioration in sleep deprivation condition.

Fractal Dimension and Power Spectrum of Electroencephalography Signals of Sleep Inertia State

“…The sleepy and fatigued drivers had small variations of speed, as reported in [35]. However, the speed was higher in the sleep deprived groups, as compared to the normal sleep group [36].…”

“…From the driving simulator, the performances are evaluated based on two types of measurements: vehicle and road-based; and, driver's physical and behavior-based. The vehicle and road-based measurements were analyzed in the perspective of lane deviation [32]- [35], speed maintenance [35], [36], car-following distance [35], and crash occurrences [33]. The sleepy and fatigued drivers had small variations of speed, as reported in [35].…”

“…Based on the driver's physical and behavior responses, the eye-tracking system has been used [35], [36] to record and track the driver's eye movement, which is associated with visual attention. From the eye tracker, the study was able to identify the eye fixation for the normal and sleep deprived groups, where the normal sleep group paid more attention to the direct sight (front), as compared to the sleep deprived group.…”

Correlation Among Behavior, Personality, and Electroencephalography Revealed by a Simulated Driving Experiment

“…The cognitive load could affect driving negatively, undermining drivers’ driving performance (Lee et al, 2007; Wijayanto et al, 2018). The increased cognitive load was associated with a common network comprising occipital cortices and parietal, thalamus, and the cerebellum (Tomasi et al, 2007).…”

“…Among these areas, the occipital and parietal cortex are crucial in visual spatial attention functioning (Garg et al, 2007; Weaver and Stevens, 2007; Lauritzen et al, 2009). Visual spatial attention is a kind of attention, including a series of cognitive activities, such as visual searching, spatial area selection, attention switching and selective visual information processing in the useful field of view (Richardson and Marottoli, 2003; Wijayanto et al, 2018). Researches indicated that visual attention played an important role in predicting driving task performance, which is associated with a threefold increase in the risk of driving errors (Richardson and Marottoli, 2003).…”