Visual and steering behaviours during lane departures: a longitudinal study of interactions between lane departure warning system, driving task and driving experience.

Lane Departure Warning Systems (LDWS) generate a warning in case of imminent lane departure. LDWS have proven to be effective and associated human-machine cooperation modelled. In this study, LDWS acceptance and its impact on visual and steering behaviour have been investigated over 6 weeks for novice and experienced drivers. Unprovoked lane departures were analysed along three driving tasks gradually more demanding. These observations were compared to a baseline condition without automation. The number of lane departures and their duration were dramatically reduced by LDWS, and a narrower visual spread of search during lane departure events was recorded. The findings confirmed LDWS effectiveness and suggested that these benefits are supported by visuo-attentional guidance. No specific influence of driving experience on LDWS was found, suggesting that similar cognitive processes are engaged with or without driving experience. Drivers' acceptance of LDWS lowered after automation use, but LDWS effectiveness remained stable during prolonged use.Practitioner summary: Lane Departure Warning Systems (LDWS) have been designed to prevent lane departure crashes. Here, LDWS assessment over a 6-week period showed a major drop in the number of lane departure events increasing over time. LDWS effectiveness is supported by the guidance of drivers' visual attention during lane departure events.

Comparison of Experienced and Novice Drivers' Visual and Driving Behaviors during Warned or Unwarned Near-Forward Collisions.

Forward collision warning systems (FCWSs) monitor the road ahead and warn drivers when the time to collision reaches a certain threshold. Using a driving simulator, this study compared the effects of FCWSs between novice drivers (unlicensed drivers) and experienced drivers (holding a driving license for at least four years) on near-collision events, as well as visual and driving behaviors. The experimental drives lasted about six hours spread over six consecutive weeks. Visual behaviors (e.g., mean number of fixations) and driving behaviors (e.g., braking reaction times) were collected during unprovoked near-collision events occurring during a car-following task, with (FCWS group) or without FCWS (No Automation group). FCWS presence reduced the number of near-collision events drastically and enhanced visual behaviors during those events. Unexpectedly, brake reaction times were observed to be significantly longer with FCWS, suggesting a cognitive cost associated with the warning process. Still, the FCWS showed a slight safety benefit for novice drivers attributed to the assistance provided for the situation analysis. Outside the warning events, FCWS presence also impacted car-following behaviors. Drivers took an extra safety margin, possibly to prevent incidental triggering of warnings. The data enlighten the nature of the cognitive processes associated with FCWSs. Altogether, the findings support the general efficiency of FCWSs observed through a massive reduction in the number of near-collision events and point toward the need for further investigations.

Involvement of the posterior tool processing network during explicit retrieval of action tool and semantic tool knowledge: an fMRI study.

Our ability to understand how to interact with familiar objects is supported by conceptual tool knowledge. Conceptual tool knowledge includes action tool and semantic tool knowledge which are supported by the ventro-dorsal and the ventral pathways, respectively. This apparent functional segregation has been recently called into question. In a block-design fMRI study, 35 participants were asked to complete manipulation, function, and association judgment tasks about pairs of familiar objects. Our results showed that lateral occipitotemporal cortex in the ventral pathway was more sensitive to manipulation and function judgment tasks compared with association judgment tasks. Functional connectivity analyses revealed distinct coupling patterns between inferior parietal lobule, lateral occipitotemporal cortex, and fusiform gyrus. Taken together, these data indicate that action tool and semantic tool knowledge are both supported by ventral and ventro-dorsal pathways. Moreover, the explicit retrieval of these representations is supported by the functional coupling of common and distinct brain regions of the posterior tool processing network varying according to the kind of relations to be retrieved.

The Area Prostriata may play a role in technical reasoning.

Most recent research indicated how technical reasoning (TR), namely, a specific form of causal reasoning aimed at understanding the physical world, may support the development of tools and technologies of increasing complexity. We have recently identified the Area PF of the left inferior parietal lobe (PF) as a critical structural correlate of TR, as assessed by using two ad-hoc psycho-technical tests evaluating the two main aspects of TR, i.e., physical world's understanding and visuospatial imagery. Here, we extended our findings by implementing new ad-hoc analyses of our previous data by using a whole-brain approach. Results showed that the cortical thickness (CT) of the left Area Prostriata of the visual cortex, alongside the left Area PF CT, predicts TR performance.

The cortical thickness of the area PF of the left inferior parietal cortex mediates technical-reasoning skills.

Most recent research highlights how a specific form of causal understanding, namely technical reasoning, may support the increasing complexity of tools and techniques developed by humans over generations, i.e., the cumulative technological culture (CTC). Thus, investigating the neurocognitive foundations of technical reasoning is essential to comprehend the emergence of CTC in our lineage. Whereas functional neuroimaging evidence started to highlight the critical role of the area PF of the left inferior parietal cortex (IPC) in technical reasoning, no studies explored the links between the structural characteristics of such a brain region and technical reasoning skills. Therefore, in this study, we assessed participants' technical-reasoning performance by using two ad-hoc psycho-technical tests; then, we extracted from participants' 3 T T1-weighted magnetic-resonance brain images the cortical thickness (i.e., a volume-related measure which is associated with cognitive performance as reflecting the size, density, and arrangement of cells in a brain region) of all the IPC regions for both hemispheres. We found that the cortical thickness of the left area PF predicts participants' technical-reasoning performance. Crucially, we reported no correlations between technical reasoning and the other IPC regions, possibly suggesting the specificity of the left area PF in generating technical knowledge. We discuss these findings from an evolutionary perspective, by speculating about how the evolution of parietal lobes may have supported the emergence of technical reasoning in our lineage.

Technical reasoning bolsters cumulative technological culture through convergent transformations.

Understanding the evolution of human technology is key to solving the mystery of our origins. Current theories propose that technology evolved through the accumulation of modifications that were mostly transmitted between individuals by blind copying and the selective retention of advantageous variations. An alternative account is that high-fidelity transmission in the context of cumulative technological culture is supported by technical reasoning, which is a reconstruction mechanism that allows individuals to converge to optimal solutions. We tested these two competing hypotheses with a microsociety experiment, in which participants had to optimize a physical system in partial- and degraded-information transmission conditions. Our results indicated an improvement of the system over generations, which was accompanied by an increased understanding of it. The solutions produced tended to progressively converge over generations. These findings show that technical reasoning can bolster high-fidelity transmission through convergent transformations, which highlights its role in the cultural evolution of technology.

Memory for a virtual reality experience in children and adults according to image quality, emotion, and sense of presence.

Numerous studies have explored the effects of virtual reality (VR) on adults' cognition. Little is known, however, of these effects in children. The aim of this study was to explore, in both children and adults, the respective roles of the specific factors of VR, such as immersion, sense of presence and emotion, on memory performance. To do so, we used a head-mounted display to present a VR experience in which we manipulated immersion by varying 3D asset quality (High and Low) and emotion by presenting negative, neutral and positive stimuli. 48 adults (M age = 20.65) and 40 children (M age = 11.63) were both divided into two experimental groups (High vs. Low 3D model quality). Valence, arousal, and sense of presence were self-assessed by means of questionnaires, while memory of the presented stimuli was assessed using a free recall task. We also performed physiological measurements to provide objective support for our data. Results showed that memory performance was better for emotional than for neutral stimuli regardless of age group, even though children seemed to avoid looking at negative stimuli compared to neutral ones. Memory was predicted by arousal and presence in adults and only by arousal in children. Memory was not impaired by using poor image quality when highly arousing content was displayed. This study revealed that, contrary to adults, the use of poor image quality did not protect children from strong emotional experiences in VR. The roles of familiarity and arousal are discussed to help explain these results. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10055-021-00537-y.

On the Neurocognitive Co-Evolution of Tool Behavior and Language: Insights from the Massive Redeployment Framework.

Understanding the link between brain evolution and the evolution of distinctive features of modern human cognition is a fundamental challenge. A still unresolved question concerns the co-evolution of tool behavior (i.e., tool use or tool making) and language. The shared neurocognitive processes hypothesis suggests that the emergence of the combinatorial component of language skills within the frontal lobe/Broca's area made possible the complexification of tool-making skills. The importance of the frontal lobe/Broca's area in tool behavior is somewhat surprising with regard to the literature on neuropsychology and cognitive neuroscience, which has instead stressed the critical role of the left inferior parietal lobe. Therefore, to be complete, any version of the shared neurocognitive processes hypothesis needs to integrate the potential interactions between the frontal lobe/Broca's area and the left inferior parietal lobe as well as their co-evolution at a phylogenetic level. Here, we sought to provide the first elements of answer through the use of the massive deployment framework, which posits that evolutionarily older brain areas are deployed in more cognitive functions (i.e., they are less specific). We focused on the left parietal cortex, and particularly the left areas PF, PGI, and anterior intraparietal (AIP), which are known to be involved in tool use, language, and motor control, respectively. The deployment of each brain area in different cognitive functions was measured by conducting a meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies. Our results confirmed the pattern of specificity for each brain area and also showed that the left area PGI was far less specific than the left areas PF and AIP. From these findings, we discuss the different evolutionary scenarios depicting the potential co-evolution of the combinatorial and generative components of language and tool behavior in our lineage.

The Toolman effect: Preexisting non-tool-use experience improves subsequent tool-use performance.

This study explores whether performing a cognitive task without using a tool (i.e., preexisting non-tool-use experience) impacts subsequent tool-use performance. Sixty participants moved an avatar within a maze in four directions (up, down, left, right). The keys were remapped 90° anticlockwise (e.g., the right key → upward). Therefore, the participants had to learn the mental-rotation-based perceptual-motor transformation to complete the path as quickly as possible and with as few errors as possible. In Tool trials, a cognitive tool (i.e., an arrow symbol) helped the participants to find the correct key. In No Tool trials, they completed the task without the cognitive tool. The tool was introduced either early or late in the task. At the end of the task, all participants completed the task without the tool. Results indicated that preexisting non-tool-use experience improved subsequent tool-use efficiency (i.e., completion times). In addition, the early introduction of the tool induced an effectiveness bias (i.e., accuracy) that persisted even after the removal of the tool. By contrast, its late introduction favored the emergence of an efficiency bias that persisted even after the introduction of the tool. These findings provide new insights into the role of users' intrinsic cognitive skills in tool use.

Technical reasoning is important for cumulative technological culture.

Human technology has evolved in an unparalleled way, allowing us to expand across the globe. One fascinating question is, how do we understand the cognitive origins of this phenomenon, which is known as cumulative technological culture (CTC)? The dominant view posits that CTC results from our unique ability to learn from each other. The cultural niche hypothesis even minimizes the involvement of non-social cognitive skills in the emergence of CTC, claiming that technologies can be optimized without us understanding how they work, but simply through the retention of small improvements over generations. Here we conduct a partial replication of the experimental study of Derex et al. (Nature Human Behaviour, 2019) and show that the improvement of a physical system over generations is accompanied by an increased understanding of it. These findings indicate that technical-reasoning skills (non-social cognitive skills) are important in the acquisition, understanding and improvement of technical content-that is, specific to the technological form of cumulative culture-thereby making social learning a salient source of technical inspiration.

Tool acceptance and acceptability: insights from a real tool use activity.

The issue of tool adoption has been the subject of many investigations, which focus either on acceptability (evaluating intention to use, a priori) or acceptance (evaluating real tool use, a posteriori). There are many criteria in the literature explaining why a tool is accepted or rejected by users, but behavioral observations are rare. This work aims to study the relationship between acceptability and acceptance and to find out if there is a hierarchy between the criteria that lead a user to use a particular tool. We exposed participants to eight xylophones varying according to three criteria: Ease of use, Utility, and Aesthetics. We assessed acceptability and judgment of participants about xylophones with questionnaires, based on tool use observation in a video session, and after a short-term use (Experiment 1); we also measured acceptance after long-term use of five sessions during which participants learned to play xylophone (Experiment 2). The results suggested that previous exposure to the tool influenced the judgment of the user, indicating a difference between acceptability and acceptance and between observation and use of a tool. The results also indicate differences in the hierarchy of criteria. In the acceptability phase, user judgments are guided by Ease of use. However, during the acceptance phase, the Utility criterion has the greatest influence, whether in terms of tool preference, or time spent using tools.

Semantic and action tool knowledge in the brain: Identifying common and distinct networks.

Most cognitive models of apraxia assume that impaired tool use results from a deficit occurring at the conceptual level, which contains dedicated information about tool use, namely, semantic and action tool knowledge. Semantic tool knowledge contains information about the prototypical use of familiar tools, such as function (e.g., a hammer and a mallet share the same purpose) and associative relations (e.g., a hammer goes with a nail). Action tool knowledge contains information about how to manipulate tools, such as hand posture and kinematics. The present review aimed to better understand the neural correlates of action and semantic tool knowledge, by focusing on activation, stimulation and patients' studies (left brain-damaged patients). We found that action and semantic tool knowledge rely upon a large brain network including temporal and parietal regions. Yet, while action tool knowledge calls into play the intraparietal sulcus, function relations mostly involve the anterior and posterior temporal lobe. Associative relations engaged the angular and the posterior middle temporal gyrus. Moreover, we found that hand posture and kinematics both tapped into the inferior parietal lobe and the lateral occipital temporal cortex, but no region specificity was found for one or the other representation. Our results point out the major role of both posterior middle temporal gyrus and inferior parietal lobe for action and semantic tool knowledge. They highlight the common and distinct brain networks involved in action and semantic tool networks and spur future directions on this topic.

Semantic congruency effects of prime words on tool visual exploration.

Most recent research on human tool use highlighted how people might integrate multiple sources of information through different neurocognitive systems to exploit the environment for action. This mechanism of integration is known as "action reappraisal". In the present eye-tracking study, we further tested the action reappraisal idea by devising a word-priming paradigm to investigate how semantically congruent (e.g., "nail") vs. semantically incongruent words (e.g., "jacket") that preceded the vision of tools (e.g., a hammer) may affect participants' visual exploration of them. We found an implicit modulation of participants' temporal allocation of visuospatial attention as a function of the object-word consistency. Indeed, participants tended to increase over time their fixations on tools' manipulation areas under semantically congruent conditions. Conversely, participants tended to concentrate their visual-spatial attention on tools' functional areas when inconsistent object-word pairs were presented. These results support and extend the information-integrated perspective of the action reappraisal approach. Also, these findings provide further evidence about how higher-level semantic information may influence tools' visual exploration.

Dynamic scan paths investigations under manual and highly automated driving.

Active visual scanning of the scene is a key task-element in all forms of human locomotion. In the field of driving, steering (lateral control) and speed adjustments (longitudinal control) models are largely based on drivers' visual inputs. Despite knowledge gained on gaze behaviour behind the wheel, our understanding of the sequential aspects of the gaze strategies that actively sample that input remains restricted. Here, we apply scan path analysis to investigate sequences of visual scanning in manual and highly automated simulated driving. Five stereotypical visual sequences were identified under manual driving: forward polling (i.e. far road explorations), guidance, backwards polling (i.e. near road explorations), scenery and speed monitoring scan paths. Previously undocumented backwards polling scan paths were the most frequent. Under highly automated driving backwards polling scan paths relative frequency decreased, guidance scan paths relative frequency increased, and automation supervision specific scan paths appeared. The results shed new light on the gaze patterns engaged while driving. Methodological and empirical questions for future studies are discussed.

Pantomime of tool use: looking beyond apraxia.

Pantomime has a long tradition in clinical neuropsychology of apraxia. It has been much more used by researchers and clinicians to assess tool-use disorders than real tool use. Nevertheless, it remains incompletely understood and has given rise to controversies, such as the involvement of the left inferior parietal lobe or the nature of the underlying cognitive processes. The present article offers a comprehensive framework, with the aim of specifying the neural and cognitive bases of pantomime. To do so, we conducted a series of meta-analyses of brain-lesion, neuroimaging and behavioural studies about pantomime and other related tasks (i.e. real tool use, imitation of meaningless postures and semantic knowledge). The first key finding is that the area PF (Area PF complex) within the left inferior parietal lobe is crucially involved in both pantomime and real tool use as well as in the kinematics component of pantomime. The second key finding is the absence of a well-defined neural substrate for the posture component of pantomime (both grip errors and body-part-as-tool responses). The third key finding is the role played by the intraparietal sulcus in both pantomime and imitation of meaningless postures. The fourth key finding is that the left angular gyrus seems to be critical in the production of motor actions directed towards the body. The fifth key finding is that performance on pantomime is strongly correlated with the severity of semantic deficits. Taken together, these findings invite us to offer a neurocognitive model of pantomime, which provides an integrated alternative to the two hypotheses that dominate the field: The gesture-engram hypothesis and the communicative hypothesis. More specifically, this model assumes that technical reasoning (notably the left area PF), the motor-control system (notably the intraparietal sulcus), body structural description (notably the left angular gyrus), semantic knowledge (notably the polar temporal lobes) and potentially theory of mind (notably the middle prefrontal cortex) work in concert to produce pantomime. The original features of this model open new avenues for understanding the neurocognitive bases of pantomime, emphasizing that pantomime is a communicative task that nevertheless originates in specific tool-use (not motor-related) cognitive processes. .

On the nature of eye-hand coordination in natural steering behavior.

Eyes and hand movements are known to be coordinated during a variety of tasks. While steering a vehicle, gaze was observed to be tightly linked with steering wheel angle changes over time, with the eyes leading the hands. In this experiment, participants were asked to drive a winding road composed of bends with systematically manipulated radii of curvature, under regular and automatic steering conditions. With automatic steering, the vehicle followed the road, but the steering wheel and participants hands did not move. Despite the absence of physical eye-hand coordination in that condition, the eye and [what the hands should have done] to produce the action on the steering wheel were found to be coordinated, as under regular steering. This result brings a convincing piece of evidence that eye movements do more than just guiding the hands. In addition, eye-hand coordination was also found to be intermittent, context and person-dependant.

The elephant in the China shop: When technical reasoning meets cumulative technological culture.

The commentaries have both revealed the implications of and challenged our approach. In this response, we reply to these concerns, discuss why the technical-reasoning hypothesis does not minimize the role of social-learning mechanisms - nor assume that technical-reasoning skills make individuals omniscient technically - and make suggestions for overcoming the classical opposition between the cultural versus cognitive niche hypothesis of cumulative technological culture.

Technition: When Tools Come Out of the Closet.

People are ambivalently enthusiastic and anxious about how far technology can go. Therefore, understanding the neurocognitive bases of the human technical mind should be a major topic of the cognitive sciences. Surprisingly, however, scientists are not interested in this topic or address it only marginally in other mainstream domains (e.g., motor control, action observation, social cognition). In fact, this lack of interest may hinder our understanding of the necessary neurocognitive skills underlying our appetence for transforming our physical environment. Here, we develop the thesis that our technical mind originates in perhaps uniquely human neurocognitive skills, namely, technical-reasoning skills involving the area PF within the left inferior parietal lobe. This thesis creates an epistemological rupture with the state of the art that justifies the emergence of a new field in the cognitive sciences (i.e., technition) dedicated to the intelligence hidden behind tools and other forms of technologies, including constructions.