EEG and fNIRS are associated with situation awareness (hazard) prediction during a driving task

Abstract

Situation awareness (SA) is important in many demanding tasks (e.g. driving). Assessing SA during training can indicate whether someone is ready to perform in the real world. SA is typically assessed by interrupting the task to ask questions about the situation or asking questions after task completion, assessing only momentary SA. An objective and continuous means of detecting SA is needed. We examined whether neurophysiological sensors are useful to objectively measure Level 3 SA (projection of events into the future) during a driving task. We measured SA by the speed at which participants responded to SA questions and the accuracy of responses. For EEG, beta and theta power were most sensitive to SA response time. For fNIRS, oxygenated haemoglobin (HbO) was most sensitive to accuracy. This is the first evidence to our knowledge that neurophysiological measures are useful for assessing Level 3 SA during an ecologically valid task.

Practitioner summary:

We examine whether neurophysiological sensors are useful to objectively measure Level 3 situation awareness (SA) prediction during a driving task. EEG theta and beta, and fNIRS oxygenated haemoglobin were most sensitive to SA accuracy. This is evidence that neurophysiological measures can be used to assess hazard prediction (Level 3 SA).

Keywords:

• Situation awareness (SA)
• electroencephalography (EEG)
• functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS)
• human state assessment
• driving task

Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Victoria Kroll and David Crundall for their helpful discussion on the hazard awareness driving task they initially developed (Crundall et al. 2021), and their willingness to share the task materials developed at Nottingham Trent University, and their spin-out company, Esitu Solutions. We would also like to thank the authors of the videos that were characterised and validated in a previous study (Muela et al. 2021) for sharing the videos so that we could use them in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical approval

Experiments were conducted with all necessary ethics approvals. This included approval by Brown University IRB (FWA# 00004460, IRB# 00000556, Protocol # 012002870), and the Department of Defense Human Research Protection Office (HRPO Proposal # Proposal Number 19000054). Informed consent was provided by participants in person. A research assistant met the participant on arrival, and once in the lab, reviewed the purpose of the study and study procedures with the participant, answered any questions, and reminded the participant that participation was completely voluntary and that they could quit at any time. The participant then read and signed the consent form.

Additional information

Funding

This material is based upon work supported by the Defense Health Agency Small Business Innovative Research Program, United States Army Medical Research and Development Command (USAMRDC)/Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) under Contract No. W81XWH-20-C-0058.