Neurophysiological mental fatigue assessment for developing user-centered Artificial Intelligence as a solution for autonomous driving.

The human factor plays a key role in the automotive field since most accidents are due to drivers' unsafe and risky behaviors. The industry is now pursuing two main solutions to deal with this concern: in the short term, there is the development of systems monitoring drivers' psychophysical states, such as inattention and fatigue, and in the medium-long term, there is the development of fully autonomous driving. This second solution is promoted by recent technological progress in terms of Artificial Intelligence and sensing systems aimed at making vehicles more and more accurately aware of their "surroundings." However, even with an autonomous vehicle, the driver should be able to take control of the vehicle when needed, especially during the current transition from the lower (SAE < 3) to the highest level (SAE = 5) of autonomous driving. In this scenario, the vehicle has to be aware not only of its "surroundings" but also of the driver's psychophysical state, i.e., a user-centered Artificial Intelligence. The neurophysiological approach is one the most effective in detecting improper mental states. This is particularly true if considering that the more automatic the driving will be, the less available the vehicular data related to the driver's driving style. The present study aimed at employing a holistic approach, considering simultaneously several neurophysiological parameters, in particular, electroencephalographic, electrooculographic, photopletismographic, and electrodermal activity data to assess the driver's mental fatigue in real time and to detect the onset of fatigue increasing. This would ideally work as an information/trigger channel for the vehicle AI. In all, 26 professional drivers were engaged in a 45-min-lasting realistic driving task in simulated conditions, during which the previously listed biosignals were recorded. Behavioral (reaction times) and subjective measures were also collected to validate the experimental design and to support the neurophysiological results discussion. Results showed that the most sensitive and timely parameters were those related to brain activity. To a lesser extent, those related to ocular parameters were also sensitive to the onset of mental fatigue, but with a delayed effect. The other investigated parameters did not significantly change during the experimental session.

A Neuroergonomic Approach Fostered by Wearable EEG for the Multimodal Assessment of Drivers Trainees.

When assessing trainees' progresses during a driving training program, instructors can only rely on the evaluation of a trainee's explicit behavior and their performance, without having any insight about the training effects at a cognitive level. However, being able to drive does not imply knowing how to drive safely in a complex scenario such as the road traffic. Indeed, the latter point involves mental aspects, such as the ability to manage and allocate one's mental effort appropriately, which are difficult to assess objectively. In this scenario, this study investigates the validity of deploying an electroencephalographic neurometric of mental effort, obtained through a wearable electroencephalographic device, to improve the assessment of the trainee. The study engaged 22 young people, without or with limited driving experience. They were asked to drive along five different but similar urban routes, while their brain activity was recorded through electroencephalography. Moreover, driving performance, subjective and reaction times measures were collected for a multimodal analysis. In terms of subjective and performance measures, no driving improvement could be detected either through the driver's subjective measures or through their driving performance. On the other side, through the electroencephalographic neurometric of mental effort, it was possible to catch their improvement in terms of mental performance, with a decrease in experienced mental demand after three repetitions of the driving training tasks. These results were confirmed by the analysis of reaction times, that significantly improved from the third repetition as well. Therefore, being able to measure when a task is less mentally demanding, and so more automatic, allows to deduce the degree of users training, becoming capable of handling additional tasks and reacting to unexpected events.

Neurophysiological Evaluation of Students' Experience during Remote and Face-to-Face Lessons: A Case Study at Driving School.

Nowadays, fostered by technological progress and contextual circumstances such as the economic crisis and pandemic restrictions, remote education is experiencing growing deployment. However, this growth has generated widespread doubts about the actual effectiveness of remote/online learning compared to face-to-face education. The present study was aimed at comparing face-to-face and remote education through a multimodal neurophysiological approach. It involved forty students at a driving school, in a real classroom, experiencing both modalities. Wearable devices to measure brain, ocular, heart and sweating activities were employed in order to analyse the students' neurophysiological signals to obtain insights into the cognitive dimension. In particular, four parameters were considered: the Eye Blink Rate, the Heart Rate and its Variability and the Skin Conductance Level. In addition, the students filled out a questionnaire at the end to obtain an explicit measure of their learning performance. Data analysis showed higher cognitive activity, in terms of attention and mental engagement, in the in-presence setting compared to the remote modality. On the other hand, students in the remote class felt more stressed, particularly during the first part of the lesson. The analysis of questionnaires demonstrated worse performance for the remote group, thus suggesting a common "disengaging" behaviour when attending remote courses, thus undermining their effectiveness. In conclusion, neuroscientific tools could help to obtain insights into mental concerns, often "blind", such as decreasing attention and increasing stress, as well as their dynamics during the lesson itself, thus allowing the definition of proper countermeasures to emerging issues when introducing new practices into daily life.

Wearable Technologies for Mental Workload, Stress, and Emotional State Assessment during Working-Like Tasks: A Comparison with Laboratory Technologies.

The capability of monitoring user's performance represents a crucial aspect to improve safety and efficiency of several human-related activities. Human errors are indeed among the major causes of work-related accidents. Assessing human factors (HFs) could prevent these accidents through specific neurophysiological signals' evaluation but laboratory sensors require highly-specialized operators and imply a certain grade of invasiveness which could negatively interfere with the worker's activity. On the contrary, consumer wearables are characterized by their ease of use and their comfortability, other than being cheaper compared to laboratory technologies. Therefore, wearable sensors could represent an ideal substitute for laboratory technologies for a real-time assessment of human performances in ecological settings. The present study aimed at assessing the reliability and capability of consumer wearable devices (i.e., Empatica E4 and Muse 2) in discriminating specific mental states compared to laboratory equipment. The electrooculographic (EOG), electrodermal activity (EDA) and photoplethysmographic (PPG) signals were acquired from a group of 17 volunteers who took part to the experimental protocol in which different working scenarios were simulated to induce different levels of mental workload, stress, and emotional state. The results demonstrated that the parameters computed by the consumer wearable and laboratory sensors were positively and significantly correlated and exhibited the same evidences in terms of mental states discrimination.

A Video-Based Technique for Heart Rate and Eye Blinks Rate Estimation: A Potential Solution for Telemonitoring and Remote Healthcare.

Current telemedicine and remote healthcare applications foresee different interactions between the doctor and the patient relying on the use of commercial and medical wearable sensors and internet-based video conferencing platforms. Nevertheless, the existing applications necessarily require a contact between the patient and sensors for an objective evaluation of the patient's state. The proposed study explored an innovative video-based solution for monitoring neurophysiological parameters of potential patients and assessing their mental state. In particular, we investigated the possibility to estimate the heart rate (HR) and eye blinks rate (EBR) of participants while performing laboratory tasks by mean of facial-video analysis. The objectives of the study were focused on: (i) assessing the effectiveness of the proposed technique in estimating the HR and EBR by comparing them with laboratory sensor-based measures and (ii) assessing the capability of the video-based technique in discriminating between the participant's resting state (Nominal condition) and their active state (Non-nominal condition). The results demonstrated that the HR and EBR estimated through the facial-video technique or the laboratory equipment did not statistically differ (p > 0.1), and that these neurophysiological parameters allowed to discriminate between the Nominal and Non-nominal states (p < 0.02).