Drivers’ EEG responses to different distraction tasks

Driver distraction has been deemed as a major cause of traffic accidents. However, drivers’ brain response activities to different distraction types have not been well investigated. The purpose of this study is to investigate the response of electroencephalography (EEG) activities to different distraction tasks. In the conducted simulation experiments, three different secondary tasks (a clock task, a 2-back task, and a navigation task) were designed to induce different types of driver distractions. Twenty-four participants were recruited in our designed experiments, and a 32-channel EEG electrode cap was used for data collection. Differences of drivers’ brain response activities with respect to distraction types were examined. The results show that the differences of comprehensive distraction were more significant than that of single cognitive distraction. Besides, the theta and beta energy in the frontal lobe increased significantly in cognitive distraction, while the alpha energy in the parietal lobe and occipital lobe decreased significantly. Friedman test and post-hoc two-tailed Nemenyi test were conducted to further identify the differences of band activity among brain regions. The results showed that the theta energy in the frontal lobe was significantly higher than that in other brain regions when distracted driving, whereas the alpha energy in the temporal lobe significantly decreased compared to other brain regions. These results provide theoretical references for the development of distraction detection systems based on EEG signals.